CP Currency

[Ætheling]

I'm sure many of you remember the idea of Coinpeople currency floating around a while back. Due to several problems with implementation the idea was unfortunately axed. Although there was alot of interest in the venture.

 

The idea behind it was generally Mister McDoo's, i had approached him with the idea of Coinpeople notes and asked if they would take off. McDoo being much more visionary than i, saw the opportunities it presented by giving Coinpeople it's own currency. Hopefully by having CP currency auctions, buying, selling etc. The idea though proved to be a much bigger task than was expected, and thus the idea was shelved...

 

...until now.

 

 

There are two initial problems as i forsee it;

 

1) Getting people to trade their currency and to think of it as currency.

 

2) Getting enough currency out there to everyone so that the foundations (groundwork) are laid for any future schemes involving actually buying and selling things with this currency.

 

 

Now i don't think i have the answers to the use of currency for buying and selling as it stands now. This is a gamble we don't know if it will work, we as members have to make it work. However, i think i have a solution that can get us half way there;

 

With regards to problem 1);

 

How do you get people to trade their currency and think of it as currency? Well i think the best way is to be comparative. People think of things in relation to other things. Now it'd be a bad idea trying to tie this virtual currency to any real currencies in any way, it just wouldn't work. But what if there were two virtual currencies running side by side with no connection to anything else but each other? That way one would be worth something in the relation to the other and trade between the two would be possible.

 

Therefore my initial idea stems from these questions (sounds complex) but in actual fact it isn't.

 

Why are we here? Because we collect.

What do we try to do when we collect? The answer is build sets.

So if you enroll for this currency and you get two incomplete sets of each currency with duplicates, what would you be inclined to do?

 

 

Trade off the duplicates to get the ones that are missing for your sets! (Hopefully)

 

Which means the wheels of commerce have started to turn, the notes are now being used as currency and that's the hard step sorted. We then have firm foundations to build upon at a later date.

 

With two loads of currency going out there problem 2) [not enough notes], will be hopefully remedied, or on the way towards a solution.

 

 

So what's the plan of action?

 

The plan of action is this;

 

 

Currency Number 1 = the Imperial Bank of Coinpeople's guinea notes (these things are already out there, and some members already have duplicates of those from doing trades with me, and makes sense to use what's already out there!)

 

Currency Number 2 = San Miguel is developing some Coinpeople dollars, known as Coinbucks. The designs are currently being worked upon and they look good so far.

 

 

The two currencies will have an equal/level exchange rate. That is;

 

5 Guineas will be 5 Coinbucks

10 Guineas will be 10 Coinbucks

20 Guineas will be 20 Coinbucks

 

1 Coinbuck notes also exist (although there are no 1 Guinea notes)

 

 

 

If there is enough interest from members in participating in this scheme of trading then the following will happen;

 

Members will be sent two incomplete sets of notes (one incomplete set will be guineas, one will be coinbucks).

 

Say we have Member A;

 

Member A gets the following;

 

2 x 20 guinea notes

4 x 10 guinea notes

 

and

 

4 x $5 notes

10 x $1 notes

 

 

Member B gets;

 

2 x $20 notes

4 x $10 notes

 

and

 

5 x 5 guinea notes

 

 

The only way to get a full set of each is to trade. Bear in mind there'll hopefully be a few mints in operation, so there's the following to watch out for;

 

mintmarks

serial number matching sets (ends of serial numbers)

errors that might turn up (guineas already have some out there)

colour changes (Series A guineas have already had this)

Guineas are available in Series A and Series B (and when i send them out i'll send out mixed A's of one denomination and B's of another).

 

 

So for variety guys and gals, and for type guys and gals, and for one denomination collectors there's already some choice out there before we've even started.

 

Hopefully then this will lead one step closer to buying and selling with these things, because note that even after completing your sets you may still have the odd note spare.

 

So what do you think?

 

 

More importantly would you take part?

[Ætheling]

1 Guinea notes probably will have to be designed so people don't get stuck unable to give change!

[Art]

Yes, I would take part. I think it would be fun.

 

[bobbycoin]

Sounds good to me. Im in!

 

-Bobby

[San_Miguel98]

just a quick note-

 

these notes are negotiable-tender and aren't back by any hard currency. anything can be negotiable-tender, as long as somebody is willing to accept it. if a seller accepts rocks as payment, a buyer may legally purchase goods by paying in rocks.

 

accepting these notes as payment for anything is at your own discretion, as these have no monetary value whatsoever. in fact, coinbucks are backed by grains of sand. if you choose to redeem any coinbuck notes, you may do so and receive 1 grain of sand per coinbuck.

 

 

other forms of local currency:

 

http://public.fotki.com/sanmiguel/private_...lington_vermont

http://public.fotki.com/sanmiguel/private_...od_river_oregon

http://public.fotki.com/sanmiguel/private_...orvallis_oregon

http://public.fotki.com/sanmiguel/private_...ithaca_new_york

http://public.fotki.com/sanmiguel/private_...dison_wisconsin

http://public.fotki.com/sanmiguel/private_issues/toronto

[jtryka]

This sounds fun, count me in!

[gxseries]

Errrrr to have a Japanese dragon design to depict a buck is very odd.

[Tiffibunny]

Very nice designs!

[Ætheling]

Errrrr to have a Japanese dragon design to depict a buck is very odd.

 

Lemme elaborate;

 

$1 is Dragon (Oriental flavour)

$5 is Miss Liberty (US flavour)

$10 is Britannia/French Liberty (European flavour)

$20 is Athenian Owl (Classical Flavour)

 

 

As you are aware the guinea notes are of a British and Roman flavour.

 

Hopefully this emphasises a little that the Coinpeople forum is an international one.

[jtryka]

Will any of these notes be only in green and black ink on white paper so they might be more familiar to us Yanks?

[San_Miguel98]

wrong shade...but at least it's green!

 

[Ætheling]

Will any of these notes be only in green and black ink on white paper so they might be more familiar to us Yanks?

 

 

Not if i can help it!

 

We've tried to be original.

[gxseries]

I don't quite see how this could possibly be called an international flavour with just 4 banknotes, or rather just a sad representation of the world. I mean, there is Africa, South and Central America, Middle East and Oceania.

 

I'm just hoping that there will be more designs...

[Tane]

Nice idea! I think you'd need to add atleast denominations of 2 and 50 Coinbucks, perhaps even 100 and 500. A ½ coinbuck might be convenient too.

 

It is going to be a huge pile of sand

[San_Miguel98]

I don't quite see how this could possibly be called an international flavour with just 4 banknotes, or rather just a sad representation of the world. I mean, there is Africa, South and Central America, Middle East and Oceania.

 

I'm just hoping that there will be more designs...

i was only asked to make a series of four notes, so that's all i've made. future denominations/designs are certainly possible. that said, it was never my intention to represent the whole world. we could have 100 different notes, and the entire world would still note be represented. i chose world coin designs to keep these notes from being too us-centric. i suppose calling them "bucks" doesn't help, but i'm a big coffee fan, and coinpeople coinbucks has a ring to it. keep in mind coinpeople.com doesn't have an africa, middle east, americas, etc. section either.

 

the old series of coinpeople dollars had each denomination themed after specific members. i've themed my designs after coins, and out of everybody here, i probably know the least about coins.

[Ætheling]

When i referred to international flavour i was thinking more representing members on this forum.

 

Americas (done), Europe (done), Australia (now included).

 

Do we have anyone from Africa and Asia currently reading the boards? If so we'll add those. Antartica too if there's enough members here from there.

 

I really want to keep the amount of notes produced down, no need for $100 and $500 this would just lead to inflation. I want you guys to think of 20 as a lot!

 

The real reason for not including the higher denominations though is practicality. If enough members take part in the scheme just printing of the required numbers of 1s, 5s, 10s and 20s is going to be a big task (and for me fairly expensive since i don't have my own printer). Just there there's about what 400 notes? Maybe 500?

 

If we add any more denominations, i'm just not going to have the time and the resources to do this at all!

 

Anyone with a colour printer though who fancies participating as a 'mint', please contact me. I hope to spread the printing burden between a handful mints if i can, work as a team for the team. Each person who is allocated as a mint will be sent the necessary files, the serial number sequences and a mint letter.

 

Obviously this is a position of trust though and you'll have to be agreed upon by both myself and San Miguel as this is a team effort.

 

 

So do you fancy making CP history?

[Sir Sisu]

Count me in too please. Sounds quite interesting. I can probably help a little with the printing if needed.

 

 

...

the old series of coinpeople dollars had each denomination themed after specific members. ...

 

I never did ever see these in person though.

[bobbycoin]

I would like to participate as a Mint

 

Would we have our own mint marks?

 

And as a participating Mint would I be able to do a fractional currency? I would make my own 1/10, 1/4, 1/2.... notes and have CoinBucks backing them? Just an idea I had, thought I would throw it out there.

 

-Bobby

[gxseries]

...

 

Do we have anyone from Africa and Asia currently reading the boards? If so we'll add those. Antartica too if there's enough members here from there.

 

...

 

Anyone with a colour printer though who fancies participating as a 'mint', please contact me. I hope to spread the printing burden between a handful mints if i can, work as a team for the team. Each person who is allocated as a mint will be sent the necessary files, the serial number sequences and a mint letter.

 

...

 

So do you fancy making CP history?

 

Wait, I am an Asian

 

Of course I would love to help out printing! I have an A3 printer if you wish to make an insane A3 sized notes or multiple notes for auction purposes...

 

Of course, CP notes will succeed

[Ætheling]

Of course you are! Sorry i keep think of you as Australian! Me bad!

 

Well the $1 note has a Dragon theme, that's an oriental theme. So we kinda do have a bit of Asian there.

 

Africa is missing though as far as i remember. But do remember this is only the first starting points of this new experiment, if we make it succeed then we can expand upon it, make new denominations and have redesigns. Think of this as PCI, lets just get it up and running and then we can iron out the problems as we go along and sort out anything we're not happy with. From experience that's generally the best approach. Quite good if we mess things up a little or don't get things quite perfect it'll be an incentive to do better next time!

 

 

[Ætheling]

So the preliminary list of mints (yet to be confirmed) are;

 

Ætheling (operating as S)

Bobby Coin (operating B )

Sir Sisu (operating as H)

Gxseries (operating as X)

 

 

San Miguel is the designer of the notes but i don't know if he's printing any or not.

 

I think that's enough for the purposes, best not to have too many.

[banivechi]

Present!

I have an idea: The Mintmasters can send the images of the everybody's notes by e-mail in .pdf format (to avoid the changing of serial number) and everybody can print his own lot of notes.

[Ætheling]

Present!

I have an idea: The Mintmasters can send the images of the everybody's notes by e-mail in .pdf format (to avoid the changing of serial number) and everybody can print his own lot of notes.

 

 

It was considered but they'll be alot of variation between all the notes then! Different types of printers, different types of paper etc.

 

Your idea certainly has an advantage over the current idea (especially when it comes to the posting out of all the notes). But i think there should be some form of centralised control?

 

 

The serial numbers will change Banivechi, no note can have the same serial number, we're trying to make this a real as possible.

 

 

Should McDoo resurface in future and say take this idea further then having everyone printing the notes off themselves might hinder future expansions on the project. I.e inflation.

[gxseries]

Most definately an ingenious method. But with the pdf file format, currently there is no control over how and who can print it, as in, one could just print 1000 pages of the same page (I know it's silly) and he could just forward the same pdf file to others and the rest could just print the same page. Of course this is the fastest way to spread the file but there is zero control over this.

 

One nice idea that I thought of is that IF the person who wants to get the notes happens to want some other items from the person who is producing the notes, great, this will solve quite a fair bit of problem. But chances are, not every person printing will have items to sell or rather, have the items that a person would want. Another alternative that I thought off would probably be a slightly painful option, which is the first person sends let's say 10 copies of the notes. The next person who receives it will get one copy out of that lot and sends the next 9 left. The next person will get another copy and sends the next 8 out etc.

 

Of course this would be benefiticial, I mean because of the various locations of the prints, it would only make sense if let's say, I print my note series here in Australia and send some sets off to a single person the US for the purpose of spreading 10 other sets in the US alone and if he distributes it, that alone will probably save quite a fair bit on the postage.

 

The question lies upon, is everyone willing to sarcifice a small postage stamp and how trustworthy everyone cab be. Of course I am not doubting anyone, but assuming if a horrible mishap like a mail loss happen, it would just be tragic for those who haven't received it yet. Or it could be possible that the notes get damaged somewhere in the middle.

 

Of course, I am happy to pay for the print costs even if it can get quite expensive but unfortunately, postage fees are ridiciously lame when it comes to sending more than 10 people.

[Ætheling]

I like that idea of distribution GX, kinda like Short Snorter!

 

 

This will have to be thoroughly dealt with. Anyone with better ideas on note distribution, or grievances on suggested methods please speak up now.

 

We would like a forum consensus on this.