More Terrible Secrets of Firefly Revealed!

Mike J.

Master Member
Those of you who are reading this are (I'm sure) familiar with Ben and his work over at PropCircle: http://www.propcircle.com/showthread.php?p=2967

And the allied thread here: http://www.rpf.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=110522

Squinting at the one blurry photo we have from the Exewing show, I could just make out some text in the top few lines:

http://www.rpf.invisionzone.com/uploads/po...-1148008087.jpg

"The Olympia National Bank".

I went and did a Google search for "Olympia National Bank", and found the original certificate that the propmaster must have used. The ship's papers are based on an old trust fund certificate, from the west coast.

The original certificates are for sale online at Scripophily.com. It comes out to about $45 if you want to buy one. I saw their preview picture and had an unexpected discovery...

We know one of the TV series bills appears to be denominated as $1200. You can see it in pictures from the Exewing show. What an odd amount...

The Olympia Trust certificate is in the same amount, and must be the origin of that piece of art on the bill. They are identical.

So now we have a weird piece of paper ephemera contributing to two separate props.

I took the liberty of scanning the $1200 graphic, for those of us that are graphically inclined :)

Personally, I do not recommend spending $45 for one of these certificates: all the text is financial in nature, essentially worthless for a prop reproduction, and the color is green, not blue or brown. My goal here is to save you a little trouble. If you just want it to display, because it looks pretty, then go nuts.

...We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadwave...


-Mike
 
Sith Sheriff Brody, you're my hero.


This week has been insane, but I'm hoping to do some research/work on the Firfly papers this week end.
 
note2.jpg


:D


-Mike
 
Is this the papers Mal shows the officer when they dock with the fed ship to patch up the reverend? Yes, it is I checked the link. I can make the leather "jacket" if need be. The bracket that holds the papers to the jacket looks to be brass and a different shape than what is used on the reproduction and the snaps are brass on the original prop, not silver. What is the device laying on the papers in the screen capture?
 
From one paper worker to another, that's some mighty fine work you've done there. Sharp eyes.
 
WOW MIKE......

I mean WOW.

Very cool.

Which certificate is it on the site?

You really are on a Firefly streak.

-Bryan
 
Any chance of getting a copy, link or, file image of that one you found? I've given myself a headache scrolling through all those certificate images and I either passed it up, or well, I dunno' I just couldn't find it after three passes.
 
Okay, I see where the graphic for the currency comes from, but how does that sertificate relate to the ship's papers from the show? I'm missing the connection there.

BTW, nice find, SSB.
 
<div class='quotetop'>(Darkknight0667 @ May 26 2006, 12:15 PM) [snapback]1251127[/snapback]</div>
Okay, I see where the graphic for the currency comes from, but how does that sertificate relate to the ship's papers from the show? I'm missing the connection there.

BTW, nice find, SSB.
[/b]
Yeah, Great find... Sorry about my lack of specifics, but Darkknight0667 summed up my thoughts about this. Is there a second certificate out there for the cover page of the ship's papers?

c1_3.jpg
 
Sorry I didn't make this clear:

What you see on Scripophily is just the first page; the document unfolds, and it is the second page that is the basis of the ship's papers.

Incidentally, the certificate is 10 inches wide by 15 and one-eighth inches tall. Big.

c1.jpg


c2.jpg


c3.jpg



-Mike
 
Yes, thanks. I appreciate the clarification and the pictures.

It still looks to me like they changed the boarder color to blue and widened the top boarder signifigantly for the TV show.
 
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