Realistic black and grey tattoo of a crumpled banknote with a portrait and curling paper edges, shown on an arm or leg.

Crumpled banknote tattoo on a limb

Realism · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic tattoo of a banknote crumpled and curling outward in a spiral, with a central portrait and printed lettering around the edges. The shading is smooth and detailed, with strong highlights on the raised folds and deep shadows in the creases. The ink is almost entirely grey and black, and the photo is taken close up with the design filling the frame.

Realism Other Banknote Money Portrait Spiral

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

By the time the note reached you it had been folded so many times it had forgotten it was ever flat. Someone had crammed it into the lining of a coat, and the coat had sat unclaimed in the back of the lost property room at Harrowden Junction through three winters, so the paper had curled outward like a fern growing the wrong way, its edges frayed to fringe. You smooth it on the counter with the side of your hand. The portrait sits at the centre of the spiral, brow creased where the paper bent, and the printed border runs round the outside in tiny letters you have to tilt under the lamp to read.

Keep reading

The form asks for a description of the item. You write one note, much travelled, and then, because the box is still empty, you add a line about the crease across the face. Maureen from the ticket office leans over your shoulder and says nobody will ever come for a crumpled tenner, and she's probably right. Regulations say anything over fifty pounds goes up to the safe for ninety days and then to the Crown, which is a long way from anyone's coat.

On the sixty-first day a man in a wet anorak stands at the hatch and asks, before you have said a word, whether anything has turned up with a face on it, folded like a shell. He describes the spiral exactly. He describes the crease across the brow. You slide the note across and he holds it up to the strip light, counting the folds with one finger, and when he reaches the middle he stops, breathes out, and says it was his grandfather's, folded to keep it safe from a boy who wanted it. You tell him the form needs a signature. He signs it with a flourish, tucks the paper inside his coat, and goes out into the rain just as the platform board clacks over to the next train.