So why do they use Bottle caps as money how did they go from Dollar bills to metal caps? I skimmed around the wiki and couldn't find nothing about this dose anyone know. I guess how ever it started it turned into one main merchant only accepts it and so every just started to only use caps, but I dont know how it started

It represents a value while having no real use, like gold or money as we know it now.

As far as I remember there was some explanation that the use of Bottle Caps was started by the people at The Hub(which was basically the key point for mechants) in Fallout 1, because it was hard to counterfeit in the post apocalyptic america. Basically the people who had all the neat stuff got together one day and declared to the people; "Ok, everybody, from this day forward we're going to accept Bottlecaps in stead of old money! For ten bottlecaps we'll give you a spork" or something like that. The People, wanting the nice stuff the merchants had, imminently started to scavenge bottlecaps, and when no more could be found started trading each other's bottlecaps for other stuff and services, and suddenly a new capitalistic system was effectively born.

Why bottlecaps and not ordinary money? Well, it's pretty resonable to assume that ordinary money would be divided pretty oddly. I certainly don't have a lot of money on me right now, and most money would probably be in the hands of whatever raider gang who caontrols the bank, while bottlecaps are scattered througout society. Also, bottlecaps can be used in bottlecap mines, after all. So they do have some practical worth. And, finally, here's a big one; Paper money burns, and bottle caps don't.

One inconsistency, though; In Fallout 1 I think there was something about bottlecaps not having that much of a lifespan either, and in Fallout 2 they've gone back to using "money", which are coins. I don't think it's made clear if these are old pre-war coins or it they've started to make new coins. In Fallout 3 they've apparently gone back to using bottle caps, but this could maybe be explained by geographic diffrences.

Mask made a majority of valid points I was going to put out but I might as well add onto it in some way, caps are used instead of money because there is a limited amount of them and after the factory stops producing so many they become a closed and limited medium which can be used to trade goods, caps only have value because of the limited amount in the world.

In the midwest they use ring pulls from cans. In Detroit they use Hubcaps.... 1 hubcap=100 bottlecaps.

Hell if I lived out there I'd find a way to smelt metal and just get a die for bottlecaps and just start making em.. I dont know why there wasnt a person who did this in the Fallout universe.

My assumption is that in the case of using money instead of bottle caps, real money was probably adopted as the main form of currency on the West Coast, but it never got to the Capitol Wasteland, it's not like communication and travel between the coasts is as easy after the war as it was in pre-war times. Of course, the real reason is probably part of Bethesda trying to go more for Fallout 1 for ideas than 2, what I just said is simply a possible lore explanation for it.

As to why bottle caps would be used as money, I think that has already been explained well enough by Mask.

Well sure you could do that. Essentially a bottle cap is a unit of metal. Metal objects tend to be recyclable and fashioned into other objects by those who know how to go about doing it (such as the engineers from the brotherhood of steel, and adytum/boneyard, etc)

10 bottle caps are worth a "scrap metal"... so i don't see why its so confusing. A bottle cap is a widespread, unit of metal. you could use paper clips, thumbtacks, beer cans, ring pulls, anything like that, but a bottle cap is an excellent device since there are lots of old soda machines lying around. and you could use other things like tin cans as a unit of currency if you wanted to, or BB's, or bullets, or energy cells, etc. and you essentially DO use these things as currency in a barter based economy.

Also yes, it is very reasonable to assume that on the west coast a more "symbolic" form of currency was adopted, such as paper money reinstated by the NCR to replace the new reno drug trade, and regulate the gold and uranium trading of Redding and Broken Hills

I think some kind of new currency should appear on the East Coast, preferrably something in regards to "energy" maybe... bottle caps works well, but if you had factions accepting different kinds of currency that could work nicely. I dont think you can trade with the Enclave (haven't gotten that far) but you could like trade the prewar paper currency you find with them, since they are essentially neocons trying to revive dead government and economy with it, haha!

Most residents of the wasteland would definitely favor bottlecaps, since they'd have the necessity to recycle... And the brotherhood of steel would provide the engineering capability to make it happen, in addition to the scientific understanding and ability of actually making new materials, constructing new things out of base metals, etc... Maybe another faction, such as androids or robots or something could use portable energy sources, like microfusion cells, or something like "filaments, conductors" things like that... components used to fabricate electrical relays, computer parts, etc. as a form of currency. They could simply offer you more money for those sorts of items... something like this would add a new level of depth to the game, and what sorts of items you barter to certain types of people.

And of course, A food/water economy would make the most sense of all. Theres a lot of food in the game, and like that guy who is thirsty for water... i'm sure lots of wastelanders and traders would pay premium amounts of caps for food.

So for this game, you could actually make something that is a "ratio table" of values for different items that every "tradable" character responds to accordingly

Something like this:

.5
.25
.75
1

these values would represent

(Aid)Drugs, food (.5)
Weapons/ammo, bottlecaps (.25)
Electrical components, energy sources (.75)
paper money (possibly other special prewar items, like a picture of elvis for instance) (1)

This would be something along the lines of what I'd imagine a enclave faction correspondent to value. They have lots of prewar weapons technology stockpiled, since they are the government. So they wouldnt care about weapons as much, and they are isolated from the rest of the wasteland, so they definetely wouldnt use bottle caps. They could use energy sources though, and probably would have some interest in that (I mean, they made their West Coast HQ on a [censored] oil rig), and well the paper money would make sense for the Enclave, as it would be something they believe in, the united states of america, lol

Your typical wastelander, like a resident of megaton, would look something like this

.75 (Aid/food)
1 (weapons, ammo, bottle caps, scrap)
5 (energy sources, electric components)
.25 (paper money, pre-war artifacts)

Essentially prewar stuff, like paper money or... "who is that guy on the fuzzy painting???" would mean little to nothing to these kinds of folks. They are too busy worrying about the next raider attack, who want what weapons and drugs they got. agriculture is difficult in the wasteland, as its tough for things to grow. and while energy sources are useful, its unfortuante that most of these kinds of people have little hope of getting such items to actually function, or implement them in their low tech "civilization"... they are able to recycle basic metals, and doing things like craft suits of metal armor. And they can even melt down bullets with the right casings and molds, melt bottle caps into brass shell casings, etc. with the aid of larger communities, like the brotherhood of steel though.

This kind of economy would make a lot more sense that i've outlined, as it would be by faction... it would work especially well for an MMO

Yeah, that's how I've chosen to see it.



'cause you'de have to get the print right. That was why the chose caps in the first place, because it's hard to make new ones without pre-war machinery. And my money is that if you have the knowhow to make such machines there are problably a lot of better ways you can use your time than making a huge "please come shoot me for this"-machine.

But, anyway, who's to say no-one tried? Maybe that's why they went back to using money in Fallout 2.

There was a discussion about this in another thread. Bascially, if you rented your metalurgical skills into repairing armour and stuff you would earn more in payment than you could create caps. Its uneconomical for you do to do it.

I feel like adding my two caps (intended pun). The way I've come to understand the economics of the caps is similar to what was previously stated, According to the one lady over in Girdershade whose name escapes me, Nuka Cola became wildly popular before the war. skip forward x amount of years you now have several billion caps around the world making for nigh on useless money, BUT all bottle caps are roughly the same size and shape, so therefore provide a stable uniform currency abiet one of little "True" value. Similar to Soviet Rubles which lacked actual gold to back them, creating what I call notes of Trade, I'll give you so much of this paper which we both agree means this x amount for this item.

That is my two caps.

>>how did they go from Dollar bills to metal caps?

Paper money is nothing more then a promisary bank note of the value pinted on it. It's almost like a check i guess. For paper money to have any value, there has to be a government/infrastructure in place by a society to make good on its value. The paper dollar is an arbitrary value a society places on it, used only for trading of goods or services. If the govermment/infrastructure or the society no longer exists, then all you have is wads of paper that have no value at all. One historical example might be the confederate paper money after the civil war. There was nothing to back it, it was worthless.

Rewind farther back in history, and boil all the fat away, before paper money, everything was based on gold value. ( the dollar today is no longer based on the gold standard as i understand), but the point here is at some point in our history, we decided that gold was valuable. Why gold? heck if i know, maybe cause it looked pretty? Maybe it was rare, or finate and hard to come by? Rarity seems to result in a percieved value attached with that object within a society.

Now take bottle caps in a post nuclear war setting. It's not like they grow on tree's, you can't *really* make them anymore, and they are finate. So bottlecaps makes just as much sense as a gold coin from that perspective.

I think a small hole in Fallout 3, which was answered in fallout 1 is highlighted by this post, especially the first paragraph.

In Fallout 1, the Cap was backed by the water merchants of the hub. The Cap was directly convertable into a valuable resoruce (water). In fallout 3, there is no apparent equivalent backing.

damn I'm impressed agent C, it appears that you you have thought about this for a while.

I remember the bit about the water merchants at the hub, and you made a good point about your services being more valuable than the caps themselves in terms of what you can produce. but it's like the mastercard commercial slogan a bit. any economy has that problem of having things.

it was probably started like all forms of curacy,
every economy in the world started as a barter system.
ill give you this spear if you give me your chicken,
then what happens is someone wants something and they dont have anything to give back at the moment. so they tell they will pay them back later, and a token or unique item is used as collateral (in this case bottle caps) so the person with nothing gives the person hes trading with the token and seas give this back when you want to collect(essentially an IOU) then the person with the item has someone else offer them something that they want and no longer have any thing so the give a person a token (like the first person did) and eventual every one has collateral owed to every one, but each persons collateral is only useful or valuable if you know whose it is, so someone, or a group of someones decides that they need an object that has value and will be accepted as collateral by every one (most commonly a rare item so you need less to gain more[like gold or silver] but any item will do) and that is how money was born, and (to me at least, and hopeful you) that explains why bottle caps.

factors that lead to the choosing of bottle caps may include (but are not limited to)

*there are enough of them to go around while not being too few, or too abundant
*there size is continent or at least manageable
*they last along time and do not fade, burn, rot, or dissolve


-_-

I'm afraid I cannot take the credit. This isnt the first post on the subject, and I'm merely repeating the points I both remember and agree with...

Actually bottlecaps were usually made from steel in the 1950s, assuming they kept the same form in 2077, they would have all rusted away in 200 years. Aluminum is much more weather resistant though, and might be able to withstand the years.

possible spoiler

There are some other minor "economies" in the game for example you can barter with the Outcasts high level tech for ammo and medical supplies ect. no caps enter the transaction.

And lets not forget Winthrop? who will trade scrap metal for meds.

it goes back to what has already been said, different people/factions have different needs and are willing to trade different things based on that, meanwhile caps are the accepted representation of wealth, but that doesn't mean everyone has to use them.

Cheers,

I think everyone is forgetting about coins. Theres paper money and coins, and coins have a longer lifespan (i think). So people start using that as the currency, and then they discover bottle caps which are very similar to coins, and are easier to gain. so people start using that. just a theory

Like others said, the caps were back by a credible source the Hub Merchants. They had the goods to back them up, so it became accepted currency. I don't see who backs them in Fallout 3 though.

Because paper money deteriorates faster than bottle caps.

As we've moved on, coins have become less and less a part of our economy... Once upon the time the US had even $50 coins... But they've been supplanted by Paper money.

In some countries (Australia, New Zealand) you cant even get 1 cent coins anymore... If you pay cash they round it to the nearest cent they do have coins for.

They are round and small, like coins. And Nuka-Cola was popular back them. So alot of "coins".

In this fallout have any of you noticed the amount nuka cola machines in the game and that everyone before the bombs dropped drank the stuff there would have to be heaps of bottle caps lying about and each time you drink one you get the bottle cap added to your stash. In fallout 1 there is a special encounter where you come across a wrecked nuka cola truck where you find 10000 bottle caps and in fallout 2 when you first go to Broken hills in your car there is a ghoul trapped under your car who tells you about finding the truck out in the wasteland. I'm pretty sure if you look closely at the money in your inventory in fallout 2 its bottle caps you see not coins.

I agree with most of you that caps are good that they don't wear out to fast. They would wear out after atleast 50 years though.

They are abundant being from the most popular soda.

Remaking them would be not as profitable than using the metal for armor or weapons

But why would the west coast and the east coast both use the same currency. Why is paper money so valuable (they are 10 caps for it).

really coins weren't used as much as they were because you can't carry that many. Plus they get heavy after a while.

so why wouldn't be used

1. after 200 years most would be destroyed
2. really wouldn't be that hard to make a small press that makes 1 or 2 at a time.
3. wouldn't be easy to carry around large amounts (500 would be very hard to carry around and that isn't very much)
4. large transactions would take forever to count that many caps
5. There is plenty of paper money around to use.