Alternative bank notes

William Boyd ‘It is designed for our new neo-Swiss, isolated, non-EU life. Deliberately ersatz, already grubby, the £ has been replaced by the more universal X.’ Photograph: William Boyd

Octopii London Banknote design by Audrey Niffenegger. Photograph: Audrey Niffenegger

John Lanchester (the Celtic coin) Money is, by general consent, one of humanity’s most remarkable inventions. Because it makes all goods interchangable – you can swap any one thing for any other thing, via an exchange of money – it makes all human goods soluble and fungible and interchangable. That’s what is wonderful about money, and what is terrible too. This makes it all the more amazing that, as James Buchan points out in his book Frozen Desire, Britain is the only country in the world that had money for a long period, under the Romans – and then stopped using it, for many centuries. It’s as if we said, ‘Money? Well, it’s alright, but it’s not really worth the faff, is it?’ When we did go back to using it, it was in the form of the Anglo-Saxon coins which are still, to me, the most physically appealing money this country has ever had. Photograph: Ian Nicholson/PA Archive/Press Association

OWS This ‘No Dollars’ note designed by Stephen Barnwell won the Occupy Movement’s protest currency competition. Photograph: Stephen Barnwell

...and not, of course, forgetting...


200 dollar bills- Andy Warhol.