Bank notes with one side mostly blank, apart from a small strip of information along the top or bottom to act as a security strip. Could be sold in the form of a simple sketch book. This would encourage folk to be inventive by drawing maps, scribbling comments, making calculations, creating art works etc. on the blank side, then sharing their work with everyone whose hands it passes across. The result would be a set of money in circulation, with each note being totally unique, yet still verified by its remaining security devices.

A "message in a bottle" type effect would soon develop, along with savers of currency that had been decorated with strange drawings or messages.
-- xenzag, Feb 16 2006

Privatize the Penny by Worldgineer Privatize_20the_20Penny
Many of the annos are relevant [ConsulFlaminicus, Feb 17 2006]

Dollar tracking system, Ive entered 4 wheresgeorge bills http://www.wheresgeorge.com
[Slaith, Feb 18 2006]

Spock a fin lately? http://www.frymybac...les.php?articleID=8
Modify a Canadian 5 [Giblet, Feb 20 2006]

This is daft - croissant!
-- DrCurry, Feb 16 2006


Awesome! Until you're stuck in line behind a granny who doesn't want to spend this dollar because her grandson wrote his name on it, doesn't want to use this dollar because it has my friend's phone number, etc. etc. ... do you take credit cards?
-- phundug, Feb 16 2006


Excellent. I like the idea of this for low-value bank notes. Famous people could increase the value of the money in their pocket, simply by signing it.
-- st3f, Feb 16 2006


It would end up looking like a wall in a public toilet.

Save up the best notes with personalized tags and make a purchase of Jet Set Radio or Marc Ecko's Getting Up. Have a GrAfFiTi covered bun.
-- skinflaps, Feb 16 2006


very cool, I want to start doing it right now. I have decorated checks and real money with rubber stamp images, but this is better. I like that it's //sharing//.
-- xandram, Feb 16 2006


(+) I tried clicking the 'for' button many times in rapid succession before the screen changed. Sadly only one of them seems to have taken.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 18 2006


Nice - I forsee a policy of only putting pictures of people on banknotes (e.g. the Queen, a Founding Father, etc.) if they already have an amusing moustache, beard and glasses.
-- hippo, Feb 18 2006


I have twice found a customized bill. Both were fairly carefully done, both were religious.

The first was literally free. It was on a shelf in a grocery store. There was some sort of religious-tract writing all around the blank margins. I didn't read it, I just used it to buy a bag of beans. I suppose I should have bought booze with it.

I found the other in my wallet, with some sort of prayer to St. Jude written on the margins. I kept it in my religious-oddities collection for a few years, then spent it.

I have defaced a few bills by inking over the "In God We Trust" but I have never got one with that done to it. I read about a fellow that was blanking out the words, and thought it was a medium-good idea.
-- baconbrain, Feb 19 2006


I forsee this type of idea becoming quite the median for dark guerilla advertising.
-- shinobi, Feb 19 2006


Sell corporations like B-Buster or H*ME D*EP0T advertising space on the backs. This would lower our tax load (ya right), so we could spend more money @ B-buster or H?me D#p0t
-- Yat Hatsit, Feb 19 2006


Sometimes the predesigned notes are just as fun. See link.

[+]
-- Giblet, Feb 20 2006


Sounds fun, except that if I were a bank that received a shipment of brand new notes from the mint, the first thing I'd do is run them through my printing press and put my own advertising on it. There wouldn't be any space left for any more citizen fun after that.
-- ixnaum, Jul 20 2009


That renders them valueless under the "Blank-bank-note" rules.
-- xenzag, Jul 20 2009



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