Stamping the root of evil

December 15, 2006 2:53 PM

Rubber-stamped money collection with numerous political pushing ("Jews for Clinton", "GORE 2004"), advocacy ("LESBIAN $$$"), and advertising ("www.rotten.com"...can we have MoneyFilter?).
posted by Kickstart70 (23 comments total)

Sorry for the single link, but I don't like linking directly to peoples' images.
posted by Kickstart70 at 2:53 PM on December 15, 2006

Never seen it in Europe. Maybe because the 5 Euro is the smallest bill.
posted by JoddEHaa at 3:04 PM on December 15, 2006

I love the fellow's writing style:

"The message is enclosed in a dialogue balloon pointed at George's mouth, in the same manner as in a comic book."

He's like a careful, puzzled, forensic investigator.
posted by Milkman Dan at 3:06 PM on December 15, 2006

Isn't money like this removed from circulation once it's "caught"?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:17 PM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

Fascinating link. I have never seen this on Canadian money, although I have seen a couple of Five Dollar Spock Bills.
posted by arcticwoman at 3:30 PM on December 15, 2006

Good article about this in the journal Folklore - for those with institutional access, pdf via IngentaConnect, and a free text version here.
posted by einekleine at 3:31 PM on December 15, 2006

Where's george?
posted by fixedgear at 3:34 PM on December 15, 2006

Humanist money stamp from Evolvefish.
posted by Creosote at 3:55 PM on December 15, 2006

And those hobo nickels are pretty cool too.
posted by hovercraft at 3:58 PM on December 15, 2006

I've never seen stamped bills, but I've seen lots of bills with writing or drawing on them... mostly with phone numbers, á la Serendipity (though I think the writing on bills came first as I've seen such things before the movie came out).

(Anyhow, this is cool.)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:59 PM on December 15, 2006

Never seen it in Europe. Maybe because the 5 Euro is the smallest bill.

Let's nitpick!

...no, never mind.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:05 PM on December 15, 2006

and, yeah, great post
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:06 PM on December 15, 2006

Some of these decorations even have significant research value.
posted by rkent at 4:22 PM on December 15, 2006

Thanks for this post.
posted by interrobang at 4:41 PM on December 15, 2006

I remember carrying a couple bills of Lesbian Money when I was in high school. Right after spending one, I had a date - it was cool to think it worked for guys like that ;)

I also heard someone actually got some pens or crayons, and whipped up soime actual Cool Georges. And of course, there's the odd Frankenstein.
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:54 PM on December 15, 2006

I'm diggin the Spock on the cinq.
posted by isopraxis at 5:04 PM on December 15, 2006

In Spock we trust.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:32 PM on December 15, 2006

Any time I get Lesbian Money, I head right to my bank, and make 'em give me new $2 bills in exchange.
posted by paulsc at 11:24 PM on December 15, 2006

France No Good
French Go Home
USA #1!

Yeah, that'll show 'em...
posted by maryh at 12:13 AM on December 16, 2006

Isn't money like this removed from circulation once it's "caught"?
Only if it's considered "unfit to be reissued" by the Federal Reserve Bank that it's returned to. If the serial numbers or denominations have been messed with, that bill will get shredded, but bills with stamps in legal areas seem to come back from the FRB pretty frequently. Many people have found Wild Georges in FRB straps straight from the bank.

As far as I know, the FRB uses scanners to decide whether the bill is ok--bills stamped with red ink seem to get through, but blue ink gets them pulled.

--Georger
posted by bink at 8:00 AM on December 16, 2006

The Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles did a project like this, called "Insertions into Ideological Circuits," in about 1970.
posted by obliquicity at 11:59 AM on December 16, 2006

I do wonder what the crown + star symbols might have meant to the stamper. I associate a five-pointed star like that with paganism, but plenty of other groups use it. In connection with a crown, I wonder if it might have some special meaning for Islam? Certainly the communist five-pointed star would want nothing to do with a crown. Any ideas, metafilter detectives?
posted by synaesthetichaze at 6:01 PM on December 16, 2006

I'd never seen the "I Grew Hemp" stamp before. A few hours after reading this post I received a bill thus stamped in change at a bar, except it was a five-dollar bill. And I don't think Abraham Lincoln grew hemp. (Although, on Googling, it looks like his wife's family did.)
posted by IshmaelGraves at 12:41 PM on December 17, 2006