The Bank of Alan

Last updated August 3rd, 2005.

I consider making play money quite entertaining. I just draw a simple design on a piece of paper. So far, since starting on December 24th, 2003, I have made more than 11,000 bills. No kidding.

I've made most of my bills in my house in Rochester, NY. Yes, I like making Alanbucks bills so much that I have made them in other places besides my house. I have assigned letters to my "minting facilities":

A: Rochester, New York

B: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

C: Irondequoit, New York

D: On a Ship in the North Atlantic

Notes: I start a bill's serial number with the letter of the "minting facility" where I made it. I made some bills at "B" when my family went on vacation there. "C" is the location of my grandma's house, and I plan on making a few bills there every time I visit. "D"- I took some of the Alanbucks stuff with me when we went on a cruise...

My serial number system is a bit more meticulous than that. Serial numbers work as follows:

[Mint Letter][Number of bills made in that year at that mint in that denomination][Day of month]

Day of month is in letter form. 1st=A, 2nd=B, 3rd=C, and so on. For the 27th, thru 31st, I use double letters. AA= 27th, BB= 28th, CC=29th, DD=30th, and EE= 31st.

A couple letters look similar to numbers. (O=15th, S= 19th) In that case, I draw a line between the last number and the letter.

On dollar denomination bills, I add enough zeroes to make it an eight-digit number.

For example: The 970th bill made at A Mint, made on May 20th, has an SN that looks like this: A00000970T. [The month of printing is also indicated on the bill, near the bottom righthand corner.]

All of my bills have designs on the front only- besides, I couldn't put designs on the back even if I wanted to. My paper source is my school computer lab's 'printer waste' pile. For my bills, I simply use the one side of the paper that's still good.

Speaking of using my school for Alanbucks production, School Without Walls is a major branch of the A (Rochester, NY) Mint- I draw a lot of my bills there, sometimes during breaks, sometimes during class. (I happen to be fairly good at multitasking- I can make bills and listen to the teacher at the same time, no problem. )

Mint Report: During the first few months of 2005, bill production was very low-I simply didn't get around to it. From January 1st to April 24th, only 584 normal A-Mint bills were made, and not too much of any other bills. [In comparison, about 2500 normal A-Mint bills had been made by that time last year]

On April 25th, I decided that I thought it would be a shame to go through a whole month without making any bills whatsoever. So, I took a black marker to school and started making some $1 bills. The Bank of Alan was back in business!

I haven't made any bills since putting the Mint equipment away while cleaning my room in early July.

Recent Alanbucks pictures: click here.
Click here to see example pictures of each denomination I make.

History of the Bank of Alan
The Items I Use When Making Alanbucks
How I Make Alanbucks

Each bill I make has a unique serial number, along with a year date. I make bills in 32 denominations:

1 cent, 5 cents, 7 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents, 50 cents

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,25,50,100 and 500 dollar denominations

1,5,10,50,100 and 500 thousand dollar denominations

1,5,10,50 and 100 million dollar denominations

Click here to see example pictures of each denomination I make.
     Cent Bills
     $1 bill through $10 bill
     $20 bill through $500 bill
     $1,000 and up

The Order Form

Interested in buying some Alanbucks, by any chance? Just drop an email to [email protected]. Thanks!

Click here for detailed information about what bills I've made at each mint.

All of my dollar bills measure 2 1/8 inches by 5 1/2 inches. (5.4 cm by 14 cm)
All of my cent bills measure 1 1/4 inches by 3 5/8 inches. (3.6 cm by 9.2 cm)

I used to make smaller cent bills, at 1.0625 inches by 2.75 inches. (2.7 cm by 7 cm)

My first bills were drawn on white paper, but I have made some bills on pastel paper in order to use available paper. I have used various colors, including blue, yellow, beige, pink and green.

All of my cent bills have the following features: a large A in the center, 4 denomination indicators in the corners, a year date, and a serial number with no extra digits.

All of my dollar bills have the following features: a large A in the center, 4 denomination indicators in the corners, a year date, a serial number with 8 digits plus 2 or 3 letters (Endletters Explained) and each bill has on it the month that I made it in.

Some bills have extra features. For example, the $3 has black pen triangles on the left and right side of the bill.

The $2 bills used to come in two design types: Word and Digit. On the word type, the denomination indicators were in word form. (TWO) On the digit type, the denomination indicators were in digit form. (2)

But then my gray marker ran out of ink on me. The logical thing to to would be to replace all gray marker with blue in the designs. I did that. (I chose dark blue). I also decided to eliminate the digit type.
I'm planning on inventing a money oriented board game, using
"Alanbucks" as the playing money. I'll try not to rip off of Monopoly too much.

Hewlett Packard Coupon Codes

This page © Alan Gilfoy 2004-2005.
"Alanbucks" and all related images © Alan Gilfoy, 2003-2005.
Questions? Email me at [email protected].

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