History Main / AMacGuffinFullOfMoney

* The first arc of ''Anime/HeavyMetalLGaim'' revolves around a cash card containing a few million of the local currency. Characters steal it, try to bribe military officials with it, and even try to deliver it to its rightful owner. [[spoiler: The bank that issued it [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome froze the card]] when they found out about the shenanigans, but it eventually gets to the arms dealer it was meant for.]]

* Harpagon's cash-box with a ten thousand crowns in ''Theatre/TheMiser''.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': Krabs' old mattress, which has all of his money inside in "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS4E2TheLostMattressKrabsVsPlankton The Lost Mattress]]".

* Subverted (kinda) in the ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy''. The atium cache is initially desired for its monetary value, but when they finally find it near the end of the last book, [[spoiler:money of any sort is kind of worthless...]]
** In the end, it's still valuable, but because [[spoiler: it's actually the "body" (read: power) of a god in metallic form, and [[BigBad Ruin]] (the god it was essentially scooped out of) wants to re-ingest it to get himself back to full strength]]. And because it's a powerful allomantic metal with great military value.
* [[spoiler: The mysterious container]] in ''Literature/SpookCountry'' turns out to be one of those. In a variation of the trope, the protagonists are not out to steal it, but rather [[spoiler: make it unusable for anyone who ends up getting it]].

* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'': "[[Recap/LeverageS01E02TheHomecomingJob The Homecoming Job]]" ends up being a shipping container full of stolen cash from Iraq. In this case, the money isn't really what's important - the two bad guys, a congressman, and CEO for some PrivateMilitaryContractors have plenty - it's the fact that it's cash, which makes it a giant, untraceable slush fund.

* ''Film/MissionImpossibleRogueNation'': [[spoiler:The ledger that holds 2.4 '''''billion''''' pounds sterling worth of funding for The Syndicate is this for Lane, as it will provide him with the money he needs to keep the Syndicate running for decades. As a neat twist, it turns out that the ledger is digitized and sealed in a liquid-cooled server. At the climax of the movie, Hunt reveals that he's destroyed the only remaining copy of the ledger, and claims that he has memorized all the data, turning ''him'' into a LivingMacGuffin [[AMacGuffinFullOfMoney Full of Money]].]]

* ''Series/AltaMar'': A [[AMacGuffinFullOfMoney Macguffin full of Nazi gold ingots]] drives the plot for much of the first two seasons.

* ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'': In ''[[Recap/AsterixAndTheCauldron Asterix and the Cauldron]]'', the cauldron is only significant because of the money that was in it.
* An old ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse comic involves Donald knocking loose a concrete egg and discovering that the thing's actually filled with money. After cracking it open with a wrecking ball, he finds out it belongs to Uncle Scrooge, and he kept it around in case of emergency. Yes, it was his [[StealthPun nest egg]].
* In ''ComicBook/{{Hitman}} Annual'' #1, the MacGuffin is a coffin full of dollars. The story title? [[MacGuffinTitle "A Coffin Full of Dollars"]].

* The Philosopher's Legacy in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'' is a microfilm with details of bank accounts containing a ''colossal'' amount of money (described as "one hundred billion dollars" or "[...] enough to fight the war five times over". And keep in mind this game takes place in 1964.) Enough, in fact, that despite the usual trapping of this trope, [[spoiler:the group that gets their hands on it does take over the world]].

* In the first ''Videogame/{{Yakuza}}'', 10 Billion Yen disappears from the Tojo Clan's vault, sending Tokyo teetering on the brink of open gang warfare as everyone hunts down the missing money.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'': The briefcase full of smoits (tokens found on dairy bars and packets of chips and used to buy basically anything a kid could want once enough of them are saved up) serves this function "The Currency of Doubt".

* The big prize of the Quick Draw championship in ''Film/ThequickAndTheDead'' (that is held annually, no less) is $123,000. In 2017 dollars, this would equate to about $3 million— a ridiculous amount for a tiny non-mining town, no matter how rampant the corruption there is. Bonus points for storing this fortune in a single, prominent, unlocked chest, positioned on the table in the town's dirty, lowbrow saloon.