Fantasy issue
Unofficial issue that is not legal tender
A fantasy issue is an unofficial issue that appears to be money (coin or paper note) but is privately made and is not legal tender nor intended for payment. It is also not considered counterfeit as it does not attempt to replicate actual currency. Fantasy (or novelty) issues can be made to honor a person or event, for advertising purposes, for humor, for artistic purposes, or to show how a note might have looked had it been actually issued. Fantasy issues from the United States are popular, featuring, for example, celebrities or non-standard denominations. In Britain, such fantasy or satirical paper issues are known as skit notes. They may also be made for the purposes of political propaganda.
01Propaganda
Fantasy issues are often made by separatist or similar political movements. A large amount of money of this kind was made in Yugoslavia. Prior to the breakup of Yugoslavia, fantasy issues appeared in every federal unit of Yugoslavia, except Vojvodina. Some of the issues, like Slovenian lipa were used as semi-official tender in parallel with the Yugoslav dinar, its first edition being 1 lipa dated to November 11 1989. A fantasy issue printed in Serbia for "Serbia and the United Serbian Republics" was the srbijanka, printed in Užice using the same printing works as the perper for Montenegro.
Other Yugoslavian issues were made in the late 40's and early 50's, known as the "Informburo series", produced in Germany by Manfred Dietl.
Fantasy notes were produced in Europe purporting to be for the use of prisoners of war captured by the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Fantasy issue”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Edward VIII 1937 fantasy crown Australia.jpg by Lamashtu2006, CC BY-SA 4.0
- North Vietnamese 'Prisoner of War' fantasy banknote - Art-Hanoi 11.jpg by Unknown (design elements taken from early North-Vietnamese banknotes)., Public domain
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