THE 3D-PRINTED HARRIET TUBMAN $20 STAMP

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V21 2018 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 21, Number 38, September 23, 2018, Article 27

THE 3D-PRINTED HARRIET TUBMAN $20 STAMP

John Mutch passed along this September 18, 2018 article from Jason Kottke on a stamp someone made for overprinting an image of Harriet Tubman on $20 bills. -Editor

Frustrated that the US Treasury Department is walking back plans to replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman, Dano Wall created a 3D-printed stamp that can be used to transform Jacksons into Tubmans on the twenties in your pocketbook.

I was inspired by the news that Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, and subsequently saddened by the news that the Trump administration was walking back that plan. So I created a stamp to convert Jacksons into Tubmans myself. I have been stamping $20 bills and entering them into circulation for the last year, and gifting stamps to friends to do the same.

If you have access to a 3D printer (perhaps at your local library or you can also use a online 3D printing service), you can download the print files at Thingiverse and make your own stamp for use at home.

Wall also posted a link to some neat prior art: suffragettes in Britain modifying coins with a “VOTES FOR WOMEN” slogan in the early 20th century.

Here’s a video of the stamp in action. Wall told The Awesome Foundation a little bit about the genesis of the project:

John adds:

I suspect the growing popularity of 3-D printers will spawn a lot of things like this.

Have any of our readers encountered one of these in circulation yet?

The article continues with a discussion of the legality of overstamping banknotes with political or commercial slogans, with a quote from the appropriate statute. We've covered that territory before, but I appreciate this summary. -Editor

I’m not a lawyer, but as long as your intent isn’t to render these bills “unfit to be reissued”, you’re in the clear. Besides, if civil disobedience doesn’t stray into the gray areas of the law, is it really disobedience? (via @patrick_reames)

To read the complete article, see:
The Harriet Tubman $20 Stamp (https://kottke.org/18/09/the-harriet-tubman-20-stamp)

To watch the video: There I fixed it (https://vimeo.com/250692555)

For more information, see: HARRIET TUBMAN STAMP (https://tubmanstamp.com/)

I always like to point out that it was our old friend "Money Artist" J.S.G. Boggs who publicly proposed putting Tubman's portrait on U.S. paper money back in 1995 with a $100 design published in Worth magazine; it was the first in his Women's Series imagining a complete redesign of U.S. notes. -Editor

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
CONSIDERING THE CONTROVERSIAL J.S.G. BOGGS (http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n34a18.html)
HARRIET TUBMAN RECOMMENDED FOR THE U.S $20 NOTE (http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n20a15.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com

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