Ballookey

A while back I saw a blog post about the prop money made for the TV show Firefly, and ever since then I’ve wanted to try making my own fanciful currency.

These were printed on 16 lb vellum with a color laser printer, so the front and back don’t line up as perfectly as I’d like. I think a slightly heavier vellum would make that less noticeable, but I like the way these feel.

Overall, I’m very happy with my first effort, but can’t wait to explore and experiment on other denominations.

One thing I’ll have to decide is how to size them. I made the Sagan 50 the same size as US currency for it’s familiar feel, but other countries have different sizes. In fact, the very clever thing done in many places is to make different denominations different sizes to aid blind people. I think that’s extremely important, and I’m dismayed we haven’t implemented that in the US. Imagine being blind and having to rely on someone else to sort your cash for you before you can hit the store? Ugh! So I think my challenge is to explore different sizes and proportions on my later editions. I just have to get over my life-long conditioning that all bills are the same size.