Flickr user Joe D! refaces U.S. bills to resemble pop culture icons in his collection: Refacing Government Tender. Aside from the humorous aspect of the refacing -- the project makes you think about the real value of paper money -- an important question nowadays as we watch the value of the U.S. dollar plummet.
As a side note, I wonder what would happen if he tried to spend his art. Would merchants would accept the bills? Legal tender is legal tender, although I'm not versed in the legality of "refacing" currency.
(via Super Punch)
Kyle H said:
(This is the text linked to by my 'website' link above. I am not a lawyer, I don't know if it could be called 'unfit to reissue'. That'd be a matter for the Secret Service.)
Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Under this provision, currency defacement is generally defined as follows: Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
Defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service. Their mailing address is:
United States Secret Service
950 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20223.
The United States Secret Service web address is http://www.secretservice.gov.
Derek said:
Holy IRS Batman! Looks like we got the feds interested in the art of refacing money.
Bet if you buy something for $100 and slip this in the middle of 4 other twenties, it would spend just fine.
Carol said:
He spends them:
"a lot of these were taken with camera phones or in low lighting moments before i had to spend them (i'm a poor college student, of course i spent them, i can't afford to keep a collection of twenties somewhere)"
:)
I find it really cool and I wander what could have been done with Euros :D
Michael Jahn said:
Here is mine !
http://mix.epicfu.com/photo/photo/show?id=699622%3APhoto%3A114942&context=user
