So i have a question about the Fallout money....
In Fallout 1 there were ''bottle caps'' we used as money
In Fallout 2,about 60-70 years later we have ''real money''
And now in Fallout 3 ,about 20 years later,we have ''bottle caps'' again

Maybe D.C and east cost didn't grow or something... i dunno

If someone knows,I'd like to get an explanation


Thanks!!!!!!

The West Coast most likely to have money as they progress from outskirts posts into a civilized lands. I would assume that the East Coast still uses Bottle Caps mainly that they are isolated from the other parts of the the country.

Might be wrong, but that how I view it.

I could have sworn Fallout 2 used caps as well...

Remember Set's son, Typhon?

I think so as well




There is a Quest in Broken Hills where u find 10k Bottle caps,which are useless in Fallout 2

But... I'm pretty sure I've traded with caps in Fallout 2. Either that or the currency has the exact same icon as the caps from Fallout.

Nope, you remember wrong. You need to replay the game.

The east coast has no economy, Fallout 2 had a relatively thriving one where everyone agreed paper money was substantial. Theres no govering body in the Capitol Wasteland to say that Paper money has any financial backing.

He?
Paper money?
The currency in Fallout 2 is gold coins...isn't it?

Just booted up Fallout 2 to check, you're right the money is called... "money" and the icon is gold coins (or bronze coins, whatever).

Booted up Fallout as well, I thought the currency icons between the two games were the same but they aren't as Fallout's is bottle caps spilling out of a bag. I thought I saw someone in Fallout 2 call the currency caps, oh well. :shrug:

Just another Bethesda mistake!

Its a mistake that they instead chose a genre specific term instead of "money".

If anything FO2 contained the "Mistake".

No the mistake was using "Caps" as cash, a century past the destruction of the Hub.

Seeing as you found 'caps' in pre-war stashes in FO3 and there is also a newspaper headline (and article) about food riots. Perhaps there was an economic breakdown before the war and a second currency developed in the form of caps. In FO2, the local economy has advanced and caps are no longer accepted as currency. Either the DC wasteland was late starting (Megaton seems to indicate otherwise) or the presence of the super mutants and general lack of 'a hero' to act altruisticaly to rebuild the area successfully has left it's economic development relatively stagnant. There certainly seems to be less economic activity in the Wasteland.

I strongly suspect the only reason pre-war money has any value at all in FO3 is that it is used for toilet paper.

Since the Hub was in California, the Fallout 3 takes place thousands of miles away in Washington, DC where most people probably haven't even heard of California, that is irrelavent.

With or without the Hub bottlecaps are portable, almost impossible to counterfiet without pre-war technology, vaguely coin-shaped, and scarce. Thus they make fine money.

Also, in Fallout 2, California had indeed moved on to gold coins. But then, it's California. They're practically up to their knees in river-gold over there compared to DC.

Besides, using bottlecaps just feels more post-apocalyptic.

Folks in Fallout 3 only use the toilet to quench their thirst.

It was the Hub's water merchants that backed the caps ~right? Caps were indeed tough to counterfeit, but it was a local thing born of the Hub.
Fallout 3 takes place in Washington D.C. Don't you think that citizens there would use minted coins?
(Or actual gold maybe!? ~like gold bullion found in international bank vaults?)

The only [absolute only] reason they chose bottlecap currency ~after the series long abandoned their use, was for the "see we use caps as money too! We're Fallout 3 see?" pseudo-credibility it might bring.

That backed those caps. Remember we are now talking about independently developing cultures now. Theres no reason why they would use US currency over caps, Hubcaps, Fuzzy dice, house keys, etc. If they had used real currency, I bet we'd have posters going "Bethesda cant even get the post apocolyptic feel right by using dollars and cents"

Why would they use minted coins any more than the west coast - they used real money there too.

^This