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After the fire department came and found someone had pulled a false alarm, Louisville Metro Police responded to a call about a man acting very strange. They arrived to find Jose Veras of Radcliff, Kentucky, in an apartment building laundry room, stuffing money into a washing machine.
When officers arrived they allegedly found cash, “laying all over the area.” Police also say that several residents were out in the hallways complaining about Veras was banging on their doors and running around.
Police eventually found Veras on the first floor in the laundry room, allegedly trying to stuff money into a washing machine. Officers say he did not live at the apartment, had no reason to be there and — what’s more — was the one who pulled the fire alarm in the first place.
Police say they found over $1,000 scattered throughout the halls and in the washer.
Veras was arrested for trespassing. He apparently has a mistaken notion of what money laundering really entails. Link -via Arbroath
I don’t know about you guys, but I sure wouldn’t spend this gorgeous artwork on just anything. No, it would have to be on something awesome like a wookie cookie.
Link Via The Daily What
Nerdy reputation or not, coin collecting (otherwise known as numismatics) has been a hobby since the days of ancient Rome. If you’re not a member of the enthusiast crowd, though, knowing a thing or two about the following faves just might be enough to help you rub elbows with true aficionados.
1. The Stupidest Coin the Government Ever Made: The Racketeer Nickel
(Image credit: Hephaestos at the English language Wikipedia)
In 1883, the United States issued a newly designed five-cent piece called the “V nickel.” The coin got its name because the value was indicated on the back simply with the Roman numeral ‘V,’ sans the word “cents.” After all, it was obvious it was a nickel, right? Apparently not. Turns out, the V nickel was the same size as a U.S. $5 gold piece, and both coins featured a bust of Lady Liberty on the front.
It wasn’t long before light bulbs started going off over the heads of con men all across America. Within weeks of the V’s debut, crooks were gold-plating the nickels and palming them off as $5 gold pieces. Meanwhile, government officials scoffed at the notion that anyone would fall for such an obvious hoax. Unfortunately, they were wrong again. Despite the gold-plated nickels not looking like $5 coins and not being nearly as heavy, most people didn’t notice, because the gold coins were rarely used in everyday purchases.
By April 1883, “gilded nickels” were both a national joke and a growing concern for commerce and law enforcement. The U.S. Secret Service made arrests in 10 states related to the scam. In one raid, they seized a “half bushel” of coins waiting to be plated. But all good things come to an end, and con artists had a hard time getting enough new nickels to keep the racket going. Finally, embarrassed officials put an end to the scam by halting production of the nickels until new dies were prepared. This time, the redesigned backs read “V cents.” Today, the V nickel remains a favorite among coin collectors.
2. The Coin You Carry in Bundles: The Kissi Penny
Money hasn’t always been strictly confined to coins and bills. In Biblical times, for example, people used sheep and cattle as currency. Of course, because deceased livestock don’t paste that well into scrapbooks, numismatists have to draw the line somewhere. And that’s where the phrase “odd and curious money” comes in. It’s a numismatist category used to classify various pre-cash societies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
more …
Lords a leaping, maids a milking and partridges in a pear tree are hardly useful gifts these days, but thanks to the classic song’s popularity, they are now used as a standard measure for inflation. Of course, if you did want to get these gifts for your true love, the inflation measures can tell you just how much debt they will bring you. This year, the total cost for the full list of gifts costs $101,119.84.
The most expensive item on the list? Six swans a swimming that will run you $6,300. While the item measurements make sense, I just can’t fathom how eight maids a milking only costs $58 when nine ladies dancing goes for $6,294.03. I guess that’s why I’m not an economist.
Link Via Consumerist
Image Via cobalt123 [Flickr]
Here’s an idea I can really get behind! Flattr proposes a new holiday -Pay A Blogger Day on November 29th.
Flattr, a startup that seeks to motivate Internet users to pay for content they love, is launching the first Pay a Blogger Day Nov. 29. The team hopes inspired Internet users will send some monetary token of appreciation — by buying a song, ebook, t-shirt or giving them a “Flattr click” — towards their favorite songsters, podcast creators, open-source software developers and bloggers.
“We think that many blogs are insightful and witty and people just expect them to be free even though there are a lot of effort and love put into them,” Flattr co-founder Linus Olsson told Mashable. “It’s about time to try to give them something tangible back, at least one day of the year.”
Olssen knows that bloggers won’t get rich, but it may provide some needed encouragement.
“If you’re an amateur blogger and get one beer from your readers it could be the best beer you ever had,” Olsson says.
Link to story. Link to website.
Randall Munroe at xkcd put together a chart about money, so massive that you’ll have to enlarge a few times just to read it. The statistics cover what things cost, what people earn, business profits, taxes, government spending, utilities, war, and more. The amounts of money for each are laid out in blocks for comparison. That’s a lot of blocks. What is shown here, as compressed as it is, is just a portion. Link -via Boing Boing
We’ve always heard that it is better to give than to receive. And the research is there to prove the old adage is right. A post at PsyBlog has links to several studies about this phenomenon.
But why? Why is it that spending our money on others—prosocial spending—makes us happier?
It’s partly because giving to others makes us feel good about ourselves. It helps promote a view of ourselves as responsible and giving people, which in turn makes us feel happy. It’s also partly because spending money on others helps cement our social relationships. And people with stronger social ties are generally happier.
The consequences of this notion can work in a circle. Not only do you want to buy gifts that bring happiness to others, it will make them even more happy to know that they gifts they give you are treasured. Link
Ten years ago, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history. For most people, the memories inspire both pain and patriotism, but for some, they inspire thoughts of cold hard cash. Cracked has a collection of the most shameless attempts to cash in on the day of suffering, from video games to wine to cartoons, the money-making schemes are so tasteless they are simply depressing.
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Have you ever wondered how your city’s economy would compare to a small country? Well, if you happen to live in one of America’s larger cities, you can now find out thanks to this fascinating article on The Atlantic. Take LA for example:
With a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $737.9 billion, the LA metro’s economy is bigger than Turkey’s ($732.2) and slightly smaller than the Netherlands’ ($782.3) — the equivalent of the 18th largest nation in the world.
If your city isn’t listed, where do you think it might fit in?
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Usually, clerk errors are not good things. Even if it is an error in our favor, the best we can hope for is a free grocery item turning up in our bag. But for one woman in Georgia, a clerk’s error ended up resulting in a $25 million winning lottery ticket. That’s because she asked for a Mega Millions ticket, but the clerk gave her a Powerball ticket with the same numbers. Luckily, the woman decided not to return the ticket and ended up becoming the state’s newest millionaire.
Link Via Consumerist Image Via doncav [Flickr]
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Don’t think for a second that Google’s business is limited to internet services. Indeed, they have their hands in a variety of industries, most recently, they’ve been testing out the beer-making business. That’s right, Google has paired with Dogfish Head beer to make their own Belgian Dubbel beer called Urkontinent.
The final brew included some impressive ingredients sourced around the world: Wattleseed from Australia, toasted amaranth from South America, green rooibos from Africa, myrica gale from Europe, and Hive Plex Honey from Google’s own California beehives. Taken all together, the beer is described by Dogfish as being hearty, with notes of coffee and chocolate covered cherries. Also, it packs more than double the average alcohol content of average beer.
To be fair, Google’s not making any money from the venture, they just want to see how the process works and to use the beer’s creation as a marketing tool. If you saw some Google beer, would you try it?
Link Via Geekosystem
I don’t know about you guys, but I can never seem to find anything worthwhile at garage sales. But maybe that’s just because I wouldn’t be able to recognize original Ansel Adams negatives or the original panels artpanels for the first Avengers comic book.
After all, these items are certainly out there as this great article on Mental Floss points out.
Can
you teach a monkey the basics of market economy?
In this article over at our pal mental_floss, Allen St. John wrote about an intriguing research by Laurie Santos and Keith Chen of Yale University to see if they can teach monkeys to spend money:
A video of one of these early experiments shows that when Felix, the group’s alpha male, entered, he received a “wallet” with 12 of those round aluminum tokens. Two student researchers, one wearing a pink T-shirt, the other blue, stood on either side of that 3-foot cubic enclosure, each holding a different tray of food. The premise at this stage was pretty basic: Felix could swap his tokens for food with either of the two researchers. He didn’t seem to care much about the students. But he did care profoundly about what the researchers would sell him in exchange for that little metal token.
Felix and the others were cautious, observant shoppers. As the video shows, Felix would head first to the researcher holding out pieces of orange, examining them carefully; before leaving, he stopped to smell them. He went to the other researcher and did exactly the same thing—looking, sniffing, shopping. He then headed back to the first researcher and handed over a token to complete the transaction. Oranges, please.
“When you watch it, it looks like they’re contemplating, thinking about what they’re going to buy,” says Santos. What separates these capuchins from the scores of animals who have been trained to perform complex behaviors in exchange for food is the option presented by that second researcher.
“The critical aspect of money is that it’s fungible. It represents a choice,” explains Chen. “A coin is fundamentally different than, say, pressing a lever.” Santos and Chen had not only achieved their preliminary goal, they had made history: The monkeys were using cash. The capuchins were now operating in a sphere where humans had been dwelling alone.
If there’s one thing ridiculously rich people are good at, it’s wasting money. And this list of potential gifts for the world’s most spoiled children is equal parts depressing and hilarious. Just check out this $10,000 teddy bear made with black Tahitian pearl eyes, white alpaca fur and a 10k diamond necklace on a gold chain.
We’ve all seen the occasional origami made from dollar bills, but those have nothing on these 32 amazing artworks made from currencies around the world. Personally, I like the carved sculptures like the one in the top center of the photo montage above.
Comments Off Properly managing one’s finances seems like it should be a prerequisite for running a country. But these U.S. leaders could have used more dead presidents in their wallets.
HARRY TRUMAN -THE BUCK STOPPED THERE
Prior to becoming president, Harry Truman’s ventures in private business earned him more trouble than profit. He lost several thousand dollars investing in a fruitless zinc mine, and even more money funding a short-lived haberdashery in Kansas City. Eventually he began to view politics as a more stable career than business. Even as a senator, Truman was forced to borrow money and live more modestly, as he sent much of his income home to support his farm in Missouri.
Upon leaving the White House in 1953, Truman refused to exploit his former office as a stepping stone into the business world. This left him with just a small plot of land off which to live. He hoped that his memoirs would bring in extra cash, but between paying the ghostwriters and the taxes, Truman netted just $37,000 from the book. His insolvency grew so pathetic that President Eisenhower passed the Former Presidents Act in 1958, which created a pension for Truman. The former president made use of every last bit of it, leading an active life until his death at the age of 88.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF MONEYLENDERS
During the 1700s, tobacco rarely turned a consistent profit. So Thomas Jefferson, like many plantation owners of his time, lived in perpetual debt. Eager to look the part of a Virginia gentleman, Jefferson borrowed money for expensive clothes, furniture, and wine. He continued to indulge in this lifestyle through his presidency and into retirement. Jefferson’s beloved country estate of Monticello was especially draining on his finances. Its high ceilings and large windows led to excessive heating costs, and its flat roof and cavernous skylights leaked with every rainfall. by the time Jefferson was in his late seventies, the neglected bills had piled up and doubled with interest.
To lessen his financial woes, Jefferson started selling off the things he loved. He sold his entire collection of books to a Congressional library and even hatched a plot to give away a large parcel of land in a statewide lottery. When news of the lottery (and its purpose) reached his former colleagues, generous donations poured in. Despite these efforts, Jefferson died in debt. Two decades later, his grandson finally paid off the founding father’s tab.
ULYSSES S. GRANT -THE BOOK DEAL OF THE CENTURY
In 1881, former president Ulysses S. Grant settled into his retirement with what seemed like a prudent investment in his son’s Wall Street firm, Grant & Ward. But when the younger Grant’s partner, Ferdinand Ward, absconded to Canada with all the money, Grant found himself short $150,000.
Grant considered it a matter of personal honor to pay back the debt in full and rejected any financial assistance. He sold off much of his land, but it wasn’t enough to cover his losses. To generate more income, the former general wrote a series of articles about his Civil War exploits, which the ever-humble Grant doubted anyone would read. Surprisingly, the articles were a huge success, and Grant’s longtime friend Mark Twain convinced him to pen his personal memoirs. Completed just before his death in 1885, Grant’s autobiography became one of the best-selling books of its time -earning more than half a million dollars.
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The article above, written by Brian McMahon, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the May-June 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!
Frugality is an important lesson to learn, but there is certainly a point where it becomes ridiculous. Over at Consumerist, there is a great roundup of the 16 most over-the-top tales of frugal fathers. To be fair, some aren’t nearly as bad as others, but when your dad is the type to have “hooked up the tv to an exercise bike so that we kids had to peddle to watch our cartoons. TV lost its charm quickly and we went outside to play,” you know your pop may have crossed the line -of course, that is a great way to get your kids to exercise.
The U.S. Mint is manufacturing, and will continue to manufacture, one dollar coins that just pile up in the Federal Reserve because no one wants to use them. They’ve already stockpiled over a billion dollars in coins, and may reach two billion!
In 2005, Congress decided that a new series of dollar coins should be minted to engage the public. These coins would bear the likeness of every former president, starting with George Washington. There would be a new one every quarter. So, far, the Mint has produced coins through the 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant.
Members of Congress reasoned that a coin series that changed frequently and had educational appeal would make dollar coins more popular. The idea came from the successful program that put each of the 50 states on the backs of quarters.
The reserve also has plenty of Susan B Anthony and Sacagawea dollar coins. If the public does not want to use dollar coins, why are they being made? The answer is a bit complicated, and is explained in this article at NPR. Link -via Breakfast Links
Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Money Bank – $39.95
Attention Ghostbusters fans! Behold the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Money Bank from the NeatoShop. Who needs a piggy bank when the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Money Bank can protect your precious change!
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Home & Garden fun!
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When German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann won $100,000 from the Biennial Hugo Boss Prize, which awards achievement in contemporary art, he decided to give back in this peculiarly fascinating art:
Feldmann decided to give back to the museum in a unique way. He used the money to create an installation that involved tacking one-hundred thousand dollar bills to the large gallery off the Frank Lloyd Wright ramp!
“I’m 70 years old, and I began making art in the ’50s,” Mr. Feldmann shares. “At that time there was no money in the art world. Money and art didn’t exist. So for me, $100,000 is very special. It’s incredible really. And I would like to show the quantity of it.”
It took about thirteen days to complete the installation with out-of-circulation bills.
More at My Modern Met: Link
If you are like me you hate the sound of your alarm clock in the morning. The makers of this clock have found a unique way to get you out of bed in the morning. See gallery of clock at the link.
You know what they say, “time is money”. The “Shredder Clock” wants to ensure that none of your time is wasted, as it will begin shredding whatever currency you put in, if the alarm does not get manually shut off immediately — you won’t find a snooze button on this thing.
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You know when you were a kid and would absentmindedly doodle smiley faces on dollar bills? Well it seems now there is a whole artistic community of currency defacers out there. Maybe part of the national budget crisis arose from all the cash that has to be taken out of circulation because George Washington has been replaced with Darth Vader. However, these portraits would make Andy Warhol proud.
The following is an article taken from the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History.
She walked up and down Wall Street in rags -but in her day she was the richest woman in America. Meet Hetty Green, financial genius and obsessive skinflint.
The employees at Manhattan’s Chemical and National Bank were too intimidated to laugh at the strange woman who visited their vaults on a daily basis, even though she had a laundry list of eccentricities as long as your arm. She wore clothes so worn out they were falling apart on her body, she never washed her underwear because it was “too expensive,” and she spent almost every day locked in the bank’s vaults eating raw onions and counting her riches. Had Hetty Green been a different kind of woman, those who saw her marching down Wall Street might have snickered. But Hetty’s reputation was every bit as formidable as her scowling, forbidding face.
BORN CHEAP
Stinginess came naturally to Hetty’s family. Born in 1835 to a family of wealthy blue bloods, including a father who wanted his daughter to manage her fortune well, Hetty could read the daily financial papers to her dad at age six and opened her own savings account at age eight. By 21, she was so miserly she didn’t even want to light the birthday candles on her own cake because it would waste them. Eventually, the party guests convinced her to light them, but she blew them out immediately so she could return them to the grocery store for a refund.
SHE’S A RICH GIRL
This was the same birthday at which Hetty came into a multimillion-dollar trust. Almost a decade later, her father died and left her his vast estate. Hetty cleverly invested her money, increasing its value enormously. But she still wore secondhand clothes, took her meals in workingmen’s dives, saw doctors at free charity clinics, and lived in cheap boardinghouses to avoid paying property taxes.
ON THE DOTTED LINE
She was suspicious of the many suitors who courted her, believing they were all after her money. But at age 33, she agreed to marry businessman Edward Henry Green -after he agreed to sign a prenuptial agreement renouncing all rights to her money. Two children and a lot of angst later, Edward Green divorced her. When he died in 1902, Hetty Green moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, with her children and commuted daily to her bank in New York City.
POOR LITTLE RICH KIDS
Vowing to make her son Ned the richest man in the world, Hetty saved every cent she could. She gave up washing her clothes, never changed or washed her sheets, tried to evade paying bills, and went to bed at sundown to avoid burning candles. She never turned on the heat or used hot water.
But she refused to spend any money on her kids, either. When Ned broke his leg, she wouldn’t take him to a doctor, saying it was too pricey. His gangrenous leg later had to be amputated. She forced her daughter Sylvia to wear old clothes, too, and she wouldn’t let her date the “fortune hunters” Hetty believed were everywhere. When she finally let Sylvia marry, she forced the new husband to give up all rights to his wife’s fortune.
SHE’S A RICHER GIRL
Through it all, Hetty made one shrewd financial decision after another. She made terrific investments, owned thousands of plots of land, and had enough cash to make loans to major businesses -even New York City itself- extracting heavy interest on each loan.
But Hetty’s penny-pinching ways continued. She spent hours each day counting her money. Her habit of walking down to her bank each day in a ragged, black dress with a scowl on her face earned her the nickname “the Witch of Wall Street.”
THE DECLINE OF HETTY
Eventually, Hetty’s health failed. She suffered from a painful hernia but refused to have an operation because it cost $150 (123 euros). She became even more paranoid and suspicious, believing kidnappers and murderers were after her and her fortune.
Eventually, her bad temper was the end of her. She reportedly died of apoplexy, in 1916, after an argument with a servant (not one of her own, of course).
GIVING AWAY THE GREEN STUFF
Hetty Green left $100 million to her children, who, ironically, became some of the most generous philanthropists of their time, donating money to numerous museums, libraries, and civic institutions. Hetty Green would have been horrified to hear it.
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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.
If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!
This specimen comes from the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian.
When the Depression and resulting banking crisis hit their community, the residents of the coastal town of Pismo Beach, California picked an unusual but logical medium of exchange… The Chamber of Commerce and no fewer than eleven merchants issued clamshell scrip.
Each piece was numbered, and each piece was signed on the front and on the back. As with the stamp notes of the Midwest, it was necessary to sign each clamshell on the back in order to keep it in circulation. No formal requirements may have existed, but informal pressure certainly would have endorsed the practice.
Restwell Cabins issued “notes” in three denominations: twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and one dollar. The larger the amount, the larger the shell. The issue may have been partly intended as a spoof, or for sale to tourists, in the manner of German notgeld around 1920. Redemption would never be a problem because collectors would want to keep these pieces in their cabinets or trade them with their friends.
Link.
Patrick McCarthy, a Microsoft VP of Sales, took the proverb "Dress for Success" to its logical extreme that in order to get money, you should smell like money.
Here’s the perfume that will make you smell like a million bucks (literally):
"I really feel that people who wear this will feel more confident," McCarthy told AOL News. "I got the idea after reading a story about a Japanese study that showed a significant increase in worker productivity when the smell of money was pumped through vents into factories."
And when McCarthy went to his ATM and noticed how much he enjoyed the scent of fresh, crisp bills, he really smelled the potential for making a mint.
"[The odor of money] is a unique fragrance," he said.
David Moye of AOL Weird News has more: Link
The newly redesigned US $100 bill is more colorful than any US currency you’ve seen. There a lot of new security features to impede counterfeiting, including a blue ribbon embedded in the front with a watermark, a color-shifting bell, raised printing, tiny printed words in tiny spots, and more. Note: actual bills will not have a “specimen” watermark as this picture has. Take a tour of the differences at NewMoney, a government website devoted to US currency. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Funny Tin Banks – $7.95
It’s always good to save some money, even though the things you want to buy with it are um, shall we say, a bit dubious. Here are some funny tin banks from the Neatoshop that will help you save some serious coins: Link
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Whoever said that money can’t buy happiness turned out to be flat wrong. Researchers have now proven that indeed money *can* buy happiness … up to a point.
In the study, researchers tried to evaluate the effect of money in two ways: One was on how people think about their lives and the other was on the feelings they have as they experience life. Responses from more than 450,000 Americans, gathered in 2008 and 2009, were evaluated.
The study found that people’s evaluations of their lives improved steadily with annual income. But the quality of their everyday experiences — their feelings — did not improve above an income of $75,000 a year. As income decreased from $75,000, people reported decreasing happiness and increasing sadness, as well as stress. The study found that being divorced, being sick and other painful experiences have worse effects on a poor person than on a wealthier one.
"More money does not necessarily buy more happiness, but less money is associated with emotional pain," the authors wrote. "Perhaps $75,000 is a threshold beyond which further increases in income no longer improve individuals’ ability to do what matters most to their emotional well-being, such as spending time with people they like, avoiding pain and disease, and enjoying leisure."
Tired of the drab ol' greenback? I mean what self-respecting artist would limit him or herself to just hues of green? Why not re-design the banknotes and drag them kicking and screaming to the 21st century?
Richard Smith noted that when corporations get in trouble, they rebrand their image. So, the solution to America's economic doldroms is obviously to rebrand the buck:
WHY TAKE PART?
The American Dollar has not truly been redesigned since about the 1930s. The Dollar ReDe$ign Project is your opportunity to theoretically 'change' that. Yes, technically there are many limitations and complications when it comes to bank note design, but if the Swiss can do it on a regular basis, why can't we North Americans too. Besides our great 'rival', the Euro, looks so spanky in comparison it seems the only clear way to revive this global recession is to rebrand and redesign. Why not ? It seems to work for everyone else ...
Here are a few examples:
iMoney
by Raffael Hannemann
“My intention? There has to be a full-colored US flag on every bank note, and there have to be faces of some of the latest idols on them. Let's stop looking backwards and focus on the future. This is the time where we live. I've chosen Steve Jobs, but why not Zuckerberg, Larry Page or Michael Jackson?
The main aspect to me is the following: yes, we could choose a very stylish, fresh looking Dollar note draft, just because it's a pleasure to our eyes at the moment we see the bank note draft for the first time. But often the print designs are far away from being timeless. I've created a long-lasting composition of colors and shapes that avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated by focusing on the value of the note itself and the colors of the US flag. Because this is what the Dollar note all is about.”
Relative
Value by Dowling
Duncan
Why the size? – We have kept the width the same as the existing dollars. However we have changed the size of the note so that the one dollar is shorter and the 100 dollar is the longest. When stacked on top of each other it is easy to see how much money you have. It also makes it easier for the visually impaired to distinguish between notes.
Why a vertical format? – When we researched how notes are used we realized people tend to handle and deal with money vertically rather than horizontally. You tend to hold a wallet or purse vertically when searching for notes. The majority of people hand over notes vertically when making purchases. All machines accept notes vertically. Therefore a vertical note makes more sense.
"Despite representing half the human population, women have been struggling with discrimination and suppression for far too long. I wanted to take this opportunity to commemorate some of the most influential American women of the 20th century – Amelia Earhart, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe and Maya Angelou – and attempt to bridge the gap between gender inequality. What better way to do so than with one of the most identifiable currencies in the world?"
Link: Dollar ReDe$ign - via kottke
You’d be forgiven if you think that’s a stack of cash. Actually it’s a realistic wooden sculpture called "Lunch Money" by Randall Rosenthal. His art exhibition seems like a lot of fun:
Carving a piece of wood into a bunch of newspapers, or books is hard enough, but using trompe l’oeil painting techniques, Randall Rosenthal manages to make his works look just like the real thing. Trying to keep his audience guessing, he normally just allows just one of his sculptures to be touched, while leaving them to discover if the rest are also made of wood.
His “Lunch Money” sculpture, representing stacks of hundred dollar bills in a corrugated cardboard box took six weeks to carve and another six to finish painting. To get their hands on that kind of wooden cash, art lovers had to pay $25,000, the real kind.
Oddity Central has more: Link | Randall’s official website
