Writing Ritual Time...
What I mean by that...I need to write more often, and I have a couple places I can go - my own blog, Twitter, Medium maybe, and here on Steemit. So I'm going to commit myself to write for an hour each morning, come heck or high water. Here then is today's piece. I hope you enjoy.
Pretty Little Dollars
Since, I was a kid, I loved paper money. From places that aren't the US, really - those are the cooler notes, I think. I remember getting some exotic small bills called "Sen" from somewhere - probably in a pack of stuff I sent away for - and really got a kick out of it.
One of the things I did to add to my collection was ask people to buy their spare "change" when they returned from exotic places. By spare change, I meant I'd buy a coffee for the smallest note possible - which usually amounted to a buck or less in US dollars.
My Collection
I don't have the most exhaustive collection, but I've begun to digitize it. Digital Currency! Well, sorta. I'm going to ask the artist in the house to work for me making the scans of these things all pretty. But here are a couple.
Canadian $5 Note
Canada still has the queen on one side - this piece was one I picked up myself from a recent trip to Canada - but the other side I scanned (the front) shows a chap named Wilfrid Laurier.
On my first trip to Canada, I actually picked up a $1 note and a $2 note - the one was being discontinued (it was 1988!) and the $2 would be eventually made obsolete by the "twonie."
(Scans of those are coming...again, I've just begun this digitization process.)
100 Francs from Rwanda
A friend who does PR and media training work got to train the First Lady of Rwanda in the mid-2000s. She brought back this one and it's flat out gorgeous.
I'm told it's a beautiful country, and they've made tremendous strides toward rebuilding their economy after the genocides of the 1990s.
More Thoughts on Money
As an American, I've noticed a few of the quirks of our paper money. It's less attractive by comparison to the rest of the world. All the notes are the same size. And there's that lack of color, too: "greenbacks" have added maybe a little blue and some other security features, but they're pretty meh.
I also see the value of going digital - one of the reasons I love this crypto space - and especially see the craziness that can happen when inflation rears its head. See this Bloomberg piece for more; it's actually worse now.
There you have it...today's writing ritual, about paper currency. More to come on another channel tomorrow.
Thanks for reading!
More about Dave
My photo's down there. I'm a marketing and communications guy, I've been focused on cryptocurrency for a year now, and I'm working with a couple pretty cool brands on their marketing/communications needs. One is POW and you can get some here at this link for free.
Check out my site Metacoin, too.
