Good Morning!
With Darth there were a total of 33 solvers (plus two Test Solvers) who took on the financial challenge.
The cat out of the bag above has let the cat out of the bag, the answer to the Meta was LUCKY and it was derived this way:
Take the letter that would have to be added to one of the five entries to make it a currency (financial GAIN). Each of the of the “theme” answers contained a country reference. So, for example, 9A "Country boy, perhaps visiting St. Petersburg." Yes I was sneaky with the St. Petersburg since I live just up the road from it, but I wanted it to be at least a little challenging. The answer to the Clue was RUBE and if you add one letter you get RUBLE, the currency in St. Petersburg, Russia. The same was done for 30A "What travelers to England fly across" = POND +U and you get POUND. Do that for all 5 theme answers and you spell LUCKY.
What was my “visual nudge”, well the answer to the Burmese clue (56A) was KAT and the currency is a KYAT, so BURMESE CAT/KYAT)
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All of you who dipped your foot in the financial market;hopefully came away richer for the experience.
