A New Art Form, Laser-Etched Dollar Bills

Image Source

These are amazing. Mr. Campbell created these and other amazing works of laser-sculpted dollar bill art in his ‘make it rain’ exhibition at the Oh Wow Gallery, Miami. His exhibitions was featured from  April 11 – May 9, 2009. His unique and aesthetic paper currency sculptures are delicate like a butterfly’s wing.

Images of his dollar bill are shown here are sourced via Flickr, and more of Scott Campbell’s Art can be viewed here. Click on the image to start a ‘lightbox’ slideshow featuring more of his dollar bill art.

How to Laser-Etch Paper Currency

Image Source

Make it Rain

Image Source

Scary imagery but enthralling all the same, Scott Campbell’s art medium probably increases the worth of the one dollar bills that he laser- sculpts. Each bill by itself is defaced beyond any worth, but collectively they form an unparalleled masterpiece.

I like this one of an ornate skull the best. His skill as a tattoo artist is superlative and that skill shows in these fantastically detailed works of relief art.

Scared George Washington

Image Source

This fanciful image shows how George Washington might react to all of this. It is as if he is yelling “Don’t burn me!” Just relax George and stare into the pretty red light. This won’t hurt a bit!

This Does Not Increase the Value of the Dollar, but…

Image Source

Have you heard of the web site www.wheresgeorge.com? This is a fun web site for collectors of currency. If you find a bill marked with this or a similar ‘Where’s George’ stamp or even hand-written text, you can check the serial number to see where it has been how far it has traveled and who owned it in the past. It has been asked before; does the government approve of this intential defacing of the bills? They do not sanction it but they admit that it does not deface or alter the value, so they allow it.

 There are Canadian sites that do a similar thing, except they use five dollar Canadian denominations as these are now the smallest ‘paper money’ in circulation. I have found several myself and logged at least one of them. I am in Toronto, Ontario and the bill I had was previously in Saskatchewan if I recall. It took this intrepid paperback bill several years to get to Toronto. I wonder how many hands it has passed through before it came to me.

Do You See Any Resemblance Here?

Image Source

This has nothing to do with this article but I wanted to share this image I found. There is a striking similarity to the U.S. design for paper currency used up to recent times. I’d like to have one of these for my collection.

I’d Love to Have One of these Too!

Image Source

Above; no laser-etching allowed here! But it would most assuredly burn a hole in my pocket.

Cold Hard Cash

Image Source

I like my dollars cold, hard and metallic. The Sacajawea dollar coins remind me of the Loonie, the one dollar coin of Canada. The Loonie features several images of a Loon, either floating on a lake or in several states of flight. Recently, the Olympic symbol was added to commemorate the Games. A Canadian Loonie was even embedded into the ice of the Olympic Hockey Rink.

 However, Loonies here seem to shed oxidation and erode the linings of my jeans pockets. I often have to mend my jeans pockets at least once in its useful lifetime for fatigued and degraded fabric, which usually turns  a grayish color from the oxidation. Still, if you don’t like the dirty money, feel free to send it my way.