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DIY Currency Down at my local 'Transitions' meeting some people were discussing making a local currency, similar to the Totnes pound http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/totnespound/home I like the idea of local currencies, and I really like the idea of being the local mint. Spending one day a year making money, an enormous roomful of money all lying out to dry. So I set myself a design challenge, how do you make a lot of money quickly, which is also hard to copy?
The note I designed uses A4 recycled paper, the size of a tall credit card so it fits in a wallet without a fold, fitting 12 notes in the A4 sheet. (This is cheap and ethical.) It has 3 or more painted stripes down one side of the note. Two of the colour strips are emulsion paint which dries a different colour than when wet, and 1 stripe in gloss paint. Each colour is made up of 4 or 5 standard colours, making trying to match them very difficult, and ensuring it is quite expensive as any fraudster would need a lot of tins of paint. The note can then be easily verified by holding against another note or a test strip, any slight colour variation, or surface texture (gloss and emulsion paint have a different surface sheen from even acrylic paint) should then be easy to spot. (As a mural painter I could use left over sludge colours - cheap, ethical, and effective) The central currency title, denomination, and date would be a lino or woodcut print. The advantages being that the print has a 3D texture quite different from any computer print outs, immediately identifiable by touch, and not many people would have the tools or the skill to copy the design in wood or lino. The printer could load three unusual colours on the roller so as to get a rainbow print, again making it more expensive for any casual fraudster as they would need to buy an entire print colour range of inks. (Again I have old leftovers in my cupboard). I'm sad to say that my local Transitions isn't quite ready for its own currency after all, so my minting days will have to wait, but I'm ready for when it is. http://www.transitionforest.org.uk/forum/index.php
Respect to Jean Michael Basquiat.
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