I'd be metal detecting 24-7. Just want to bring back a $2000 machine with me and a lot of spare batteries. I know, it's not $2000 cash, but let me fantasize. BTW, is this a one way ticket.
I have a friend whose dad was a doc. took some land in trade for unpaid bills that was almost worthless!!!! Now, the DisneyWorld hotel sits on that property!!!!!!!!!!!!! and, that wasnt that long ago!!!!!!!
I would buy Haloid stock. That is the forrunner of Xerox corp. I made plenty of money on Xerox stock, But if I could have bought Haloid stock back then I would be a multi-billionair now.
Lets see, I would maybe get a few rolls of new coin each year until about 1939. That's when I would start buying comic books, well maybe I would start before 1939, but I definitely would pick up the early Batman and Superman comics at a dime each. Now in 2011 some of those issues are worth close to a million each, due to their rarity. Originally thousands and more of each issue were published, but they were treated like newspapers and tossed out (according to what my grandma had told me twenty years ago). It's all about demand.
I would also take some of that cash in 1932 and go visit the mint in Philadelphia and see if I could snag some gold pieces before private ownership of gold became outlawed. I think there was a really narrow window in late 1932 early 1933 when you could buy them still, and if you are lucky enough to get a few 1933's, then you would be set.
As a safe investment? I'd have invested in an Index Portfolio 100 ~
Results Summary from January 1, 1932 to February 28, 2011
Annualized Return ~ 13.49%
Annualized Standard Deviation ~ 22.13% Growth of $2,000.00 ~ $44,773,265.01 Total Return ~ 2,238,563.25%
Time Period from January 1, 1932 to February 28, 2011 ~
Index Values4 as of ~
January 1, 1932 ~ 0.32
February 28, 2011 ~ 7,191.30
It'd be worth way more if not for the market taking a downward spiral from June '08 through Feb '09 ... (went from $41 mil in May '08 to $19 mil in Feb '09)
Might have invested in R.C. Willey, whose company was bought out in 1995 by Berkshire Hathaway for $150 million in stock (less than $25k per share then; now it's over $128k per share ... that equals about $768 million today).