Basic Information
The glim-dropper is a con that requires several accomplices, one of whom must be a one-eyed man. One grifter goes into a store and pretends he has lost his glass eye. Everyone looks around, but the eye cannot be found. He declares that he will pay a thousand-dollar reward for the return of his eye, and leaves contact information.
The next day, an accomplice enters the store and pretends to find the eye. The shop keeper (the intended target), thinking of the reward, offers to take it and return it to its owner. The finder insists he will return it himself, and demands the owner’s address. Thinking he will lose all chance of the reward, the storekeeper offers a hundred dollars for the eye. The finder bargains him up to $250, and departs. The one-eyed man, of course, can not be found (the address is bogus) and does not return.
Sources
Variants of this con have been used in movies such as The Traveller (1997) and Shade (2003).
Game and Story Use
- Similar tricks, for even higher profits, can be pulled in a Cyberpunk campaign. "I lost my multispectrum eye - and they don't make that model any more! It'd cost me $20,000, plus surgery and rewiring to upgrade to the new model - I'll give you $16,000 if you find and return my old one before my next doctor's appointment."
- Also has a place in Fantasy genre campaigns - they say this is how Vecna got his start. :)
