I stopped buying papers several years ago and though that makes me sad, if I pick one up nowadays I am reminded of why. They're rubbish.
But once last year, literally just once, someone left bits of the Guardian in my house and I read a two page article about an exhibition coming up in London.
It was of temporary local banknotes produced by the local authorities in Germany 100 years ago (1920ish). A period when their currency was in crisis with hyperinflation and hoarding and literally not enough small denomination notes or coins or tokens to go around. Briefly, central government gave permission for the local authorities to patch the gaps by printing their own local currency.
So I had to go see the exhibition : because this currency, 'Notgeld', was beautiful and diverse. They got in local comics artists and illustrators to make vivid, interesting scenes. Sometimes promoting local specialities, sometimes protesting their situation, sometimes creating sequential tales (comics via banknotes) to encourage collectors who would then make the local authority a little bit of income by buying their currency but not then using it.
As a fan of comic art and the European style of popular, DIY illustration, you see why this appealed.
When to go? I wouldn't pay for a London trip on its own - I'm not made of money! - but when planning my trip up to the Clavie on the Moray Firth I discovered that a train from Edinburgh to Inverness cost the same as a train from London to Inverness did, if I took a seat on the sleeper train that is. So that's what I did.
Now here's some Notgeld and gallery notes.
But once last year, literally just once, someone left bits of the Guardian in my house and I read a two page article about an exhibition coming up in London.
It was of temporary local banknotes produced by the local authorities in Germany 100 years ago (1920ish). A period when their currency was in crisis with hyperinflation and hoarding and literally not enough small denomination notes or coins or tokens to go around. Briefly, central government gave permission for the local authorities to patch the gaps by printing their own local currency.
So I had to go see the exhibition : because this currency, 'Notgeld', was beautiful and diverse. They got in local comics artists and illustrators to make vivid, interesting scenes. Sometimes promoting local specialities, sometimes protesting their situation, sometimes creating sequential tales (comics via banknotes) to encourage collectors who would then make the local authority a little bit of income by buying their currency but not then using it.
As a fan of comic art and the European style of popular, DIY illustration, you see why this appealed.
When to go? I wouldn't pay for a London trip on its own - I'm not made of money! - but when planning my trip up to the Clavie on the Moray Firth I discovered that a train from Edinburgh to Inverness cost the same as a train from London to Inverness did, if I took a seat on the sleeper train that is. So that's what I did.
Now here's some Notgeld and gallery notes.
