Capital Treasures

Here’s a cool set of self-promotion coins following the likeness of the designer but looking oddly familiar to those coins from Liberia…  Dan “Minister of Industrial Design” Ballou’s business cards, which aren’t cards at all, but metal coins. Fresh! These new business “coins” have dropped and they’re getting a good reaction. The dollar might be a little rocky these days, but don’t worry, the dashdot currency is solid.  Dan said that “Our business cards…. we wanted something fun and memorable. It turned out that we could actually get coins made and keep it in the budget. Super fun.”

Ballou runs a California-based product design studio called Dashdot with clients like simplehuman, Safety 1st, and Rock & Republic. Check out his portfolio on Coroflot.

[ via Core77 ]

In 1923 the German economy was devastated by World War I and reparations made for rampant inflation. Hyperinflation set in and, as prices rose exponentially, common currency became worthless. To meet the demand, paper notes were printed almost nightly in every region, jumping from thousands to millions to billions. These marks are known as notgeld, or “emergency money.” In a normal economy currency design says little about social climate and nothing about individual opinion, but notgeld gave designers a platform at a volatile time.

The design of most notgeld, particularly in rural areas, drew on historic messages and heraldic imagery, slipping quickly into romanticized nationalism, and ultimately the seeds of Blut und Boden (examples can be found on flickr). The typography drew heavily on the past with blackletter and elaborate scripts. National iconography was rendered in any manner from delirious flourish to self-righteous idealizations in colors either dreary or fiery. The values of many of these bills — up to 100 trillion marks — were often written long-hand, sometimes without digits at all. [ Read More… ]

[ via notcot.org ]

Strong demand remains for physical gold. Well selected gold coins will outperform common bullion products. The current high premiums for common gold Eagles, Maple Leafs, and Krugerrands allow astute collectors a buying opportunity.

Cottrell recently paid his employees a bonus in $2 bills to help local economy.

A small-town pharmacist intrigued by the government’s economic stimulus plan decided to launch his own version with $16,000 in $2 bills, and area stores have already felt the impact.

Danny Cottrell gave each of his full-time employees $700 and part-timers $300. He asked them to donate 15 percent to charity and spend the rest locally, particularly downtown, where store owners say that business has been lean.

“I wanted to do something for my employees, let them know our business is not in jeopardy, and for the local merchants,” said Danny Cottrell, owner of The Medical Center Pharmacy with its main store in Brewton and a second in Atmore. “This seemed like a good way to do it.”

Cottrell said he paid his employees with $2 bills so he and the rest of the Escambia County business community could see how the money circulates.

Before he explained the plan to his employees last week, Cottrell said, he couldn’t resist creating a little suspense.

“Times are hard,” he said, “and the downturn has hit us some. Employees start to worry if they will even have a job. So I called a meeting of the staff. One employee broke out in hives from the nerves. My partner, Tom Henderson, said he heard some employees talking about the meeting. They were scared to death.”

Cottrell said he began the meeting as usual, encouraging workers to answer phones faster and serve customers better. Then he began passing out envelopes.

[ more ]

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Australian art student Nicholas Manion [Queensland College of Art, Brisbane]  hit upon a clever idea: delicately cut paper currency forming the skyline of major cities. His one-of-a-kind notes bring a contemporary visual connection to their country of origin, in addition to images of statesmen, local languages and artistic styles.

Money makes the world go round and circles the globe forming links between cities on opposite sides of the world. Nicholas further explains his art:

My work aims to explore ideas connected with cities, urban life and the built environment. Reflecting my own background, my art cannot be solely understood as either illustration or sculpture; rather in challenging the relationships between two-and three-dimensional forms, these works in paper seek to create an “in-between” state of pure form free from preconceptions and noise. I seek to transform common materials such as paper and cardboard into delicate objects of intricate detail and unexpected beauty

[ via: Rag+Bone ]

Dutch Python hacker/artist Stani took part in a contest organised by the Dutch Ministry Of Finance to design a 5 euro commemorative coin. And he won, using only free software:

‘The whole design was done for 100% with free software. The biggest part consists of custom software in Python, of course within the SPE editor. For the visual power I used PIL and pyCairo. From time to time also Gimp, Inkscape and Phatch helped quite a bit. All the developing and processing was done on GNU/Linux machines which were running Ubuntu/Debian. I would have loved to release the coin under the GPL, which could maybe solve the financial crisis. However for obvious reasons I was not allowed to do that.’

Pretty clever design and a lengthy write up on the methods and inspiration behind the development of this coin design. Read more about it after the jump. Again… we will not likely see intriguing designs like this on our coinage over here in the US by any stretch of the imagination.

[ via SPE IDE ]

Looking forward to the new Ian Fleming’s, James Bond series out again… we offer up some quick information about what real CIA officers have used… real hollowed-out Soviet coins, roughly the size of silver dollars, to hide secret material.  CIA agents would use the coins to stash secret material, unscrewing them and hiding large quantities of text inside that could be viewed later under a microscope. Other clandestine tools include ball-point pens configured with tiny cameras, and paper that dissolves in water. Agents shred the paper, drop it into a beverage and drink the liquid to make evidence disappear.

[ via NPR ]

The press release starts off “In these days of soaring gas prices, yelps of cash crunches and real estate depression, the last thing anyone would do is destroy money. Well, anyone but Yoko Devereaux that is. Launching for spring/summer 2008, Old Money, is a collection of coins hand cut into works of art Yoko has attached to aged sterling silver necklaces. As Creative Director, Andy Salzer, explains, “It is about taking something that is so relevant in our society and then destroying it.”

Somehow, the destruction of pennies, to turn them into 88$… is not exactly the dumbest way to “destroy money” in a recession, but that’s just me. Personally, i have always admired some of the more gorgeous designs to appear on money, and this is a beautiful way to isolate those elements… now if only they would make one with that one pound coin that has the dragon on it!

[ via notcot ]

I have a large collection of money from around the world – from various travels over the years. The paper money of different countries is so unique and colorful. I would like to find a way to display it in my home. I was thinking of framing it, but can’t find frames of the right size. Anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

What about coins? I have many of those too, but I HATE those felt coin-collector display frames. I don’t want to just stick them in a bowl. Any thoughts?

– DC Coin Collector

Apartment Therapy responds to a common dilemna when wanting to display coins and paper money that showcase the collection. In his Art Deco home, Joe nicely framed antique coins (shown at left below). The travel-inspired bathroom also included framed coins (shown at left).

Read some of the other user submitted ideas at AT.