J.S.G. Boggs

Today's post is dedicated to J.S.G. Boggs. I wonder where he is now?

I happened to come across this peculiar, eccentric, and apparently dangerous artist in a one page National Geographic snippet. (The Boggs 100 Swiss Frank note bears his portrait.) In short, Boggs is an artist who makes money--with a paper and pencil, that is. Well, technically it's not illegal. He's not a counterfeiter, because he doesn't try to fool anyone into thinking the money he draws is legal. But he does "spend" his artistically created money. He convinces a merchant to accept his money, insists on change and a receipt, and considers the transaction to be the actual work of art. It is the receipt that he sells to the art collector, who will then track down the merchant and "make it worth his or her while," so to speak.

But I write in the present tense, and I shouldn't. Because despite his recent National Geo appearance, he seems to be out of "business." The secret service harrassed him and confiscated all his drawings and many other possessions as well. Finally he sued them, and the case worked its way through the courts for years, until the Supreme Court declined to hear it and I suppose Boggs lost, for his website has been taken down and the web has not heard of him for a few years.

Although his drawings are very realistic, they're never even close to the actual thing. They're only on one side of the paper. They're not on actual "money paper." They have goofy things like "The United States of Florida" or they're red instead of green. They're all signed by him. I think it's the transaction element that has the government panties in a bunch. Boggs making his own money the way he does is not counterfeiting, it's a sort of... monetary revolution. Dollar bills have their value because of the power of the US government behind them. Boggs bills have their value for aesthetic reasons--because they're fascinating and hand-made. But I think that's a distinction the government misses, or perhaps just still finds threatening. A challenge to the monetary system is a challenge to the US government, however minor the challenge, and however different the basis of the rival system.

Yes, that's the way they see it. But from another perspective, he is just creating a work of art and naming his price for it, getting paid partly through barter, and choosing an unconventional group of buyers. It's weird that that should be illegal. Isn't it? Some philosopher of law should figure all this out and explain it to me.

In the meantime, I have created a OneNote archive folder in honor of Boggs, including some of the contents of his now-defunct website jsgboggs.com (courtesy of The Wayback Machine), various tributes, analyses, stories, pictures, etc. There's a book about him, said to be interesting but outdated. Maybe I'll even read it if I get around to it! I am tempted to make a little website out of all this, but alas I'm afraid the government wouldn't like it. And after all, as of soon, they are the ones paying me...

Still, I think they're wrong on this one. What do you think?
If I were in the government, I would have tried to co-opt him, given him a job in the mint, designing bills maybe. He would have done a lot better job than whoever made the ugly new bills we have now!!