Bottle cap

Bottle caps are the standard currency in Fallout, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Fallout Shelter, and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. In the aftermath of the Great War bottle caps – mostly from bottles of Nuka-Cola – are the most commonly used currency across the former United States of America.

Background
Bottle caps are one of the symbols of the post-nuclear economy. While widely available, they are also in limited supply, as the technology necessary to manufacture them was largely lost to time and the Great War, and difficult to produce by hand. The paint used, machining, and metal type all have to be very specific in order for a bottle cap to be genuine.

These factors led to their adoption by Hub merchants in New California as common unit of exchange, backed by water. The adoption took place rapidly, as within ten years of Hub's founding in 2093, caps became the standard currency of the wasteland.  For similar reasons, the merchants in the Capital Wasteland also adopted bottle caps, although it is unknown who backs their value. Near simultaneous with events at the Hub, bottlecaps became the standard currency in Appalachia as well for many of the same reasons. And although humanity was all but wiped out around 2102, many vending machines had been modified to accept caps as tender allowing the bottlecap use as currency without anyone around to actually back it.

In the 23rd century, the venerable western bottle caps were eventually supplanted by minted and printed currency, New California Republic (NCR) dollars, backed by gold, rather than water.  However, during the Brotherhood War the Republic's gold reserves were destroyed by Brotherhood raids to the point where new gold coins could not be minted and paper money could not be properly backed with gold. NCR citizens panicked and rushed to reclaim the listed face value of currency from NCR's remaining gold reserves. Since the NCR was unable to realize these withdrawals, particularly towards the frontier, faith in their currency considerably dropped. To protect against actual economic collapse, the NCR government abandoned the gold standard and established fiat currency, not payable in specie. Since then many wastelanders lost faith in it as a medium of worth, both as a result of it not being backed by anything but the government's word and the inevitable inflation. In response to the loss of faith, merchant consortiums of the Hub established their own currency, the veritable bottle cap, backing it with water (exchanging a standardized measure of water for caps). J.E. Sawyer src: "''It happened during the BoS-NCR war. I believe Alice McLafferty mentions it, but I'm not positive. She doesn't detail the events in this much detail, but here they are:

''The attacks caused NCR citizens (and others who held NCR currency) to panic, resulting in a rush to reclaim the listed face value of currency from NCR's gold reserves. Inability to do this at several locations (especially near the periphery of NCR territory where reserves were normally low) caused a loss of faith in NCR's ability to back their currency.

''Though NCR eventually stopped the BoS attacks, they decided to protect against future problems by switching to fiat currency. While this meant that BoS could no longer attack a) reserves or b) the source of production (all NCR bills are made in the Boneyard), some people felt more uneasy about their money not having any "real" (backed) value. This loss of confidence increased with NCR inflation, an ever-looming spectre of fiat currency.

''Because the Hub links NCR with the Mojave Wasteland and beyond, the merchants there grew frustrated with NCR's handling of the currency crisis. They conspired to re-introduce the bottle cap as a water-backed currency that could "bridge the gap" between NCR and Legion territory. In the time leading up to the re-introduction, they did the footwork to position themselves properly. If some old-timer had a chest full of caps, they didn't care (in fact, they thought that was great, since the old-timers would enthusiastically embrace the return of the cap), but they did seek to control or destroy production facilities and truly large volumes of caps (e.g. Typhon's treasure) whenever possible.''"

The actual process was very deliberate. The merchants conspired to reintroduce the bottle cap as a currency, out of frustration at NCR's ineptitude in handling the currency crisis. Furthermore, since Hub bridges the NCR core region with the Mojave and lands beyond, the cap was meant to bridge the gap between NCR and Legion territories by providing a neutral form of money. In the time leading up to the introduction the merchants laid the foundations for bottle caps as a currency, establishing control of or destroying facilities that could fashion new bottle caps and seizing excessively large caches of old bottle caps (smaller ones in private hands were left alone, as their owners would readily embrace the returning bottle cap).

To protect their monopoly on the currency, Republic merchant companies, particularly the Crimson Caravan Company, seek to control all bottle cap production and ensure that no one can mass produce them and inflate the currency. Controlling bottle cap presses also allows them to replace worn out and damaged bottle caps, keeping the pool of currency stable. Due to the challenges of the bottle cap production process, small scale counterfeiting is ignored, as it's impossible to manufacture enough caps by hand to truly upset the balance.

Bottle caps, NCR dollars and Legion currency are all considered legal tender by the various caravan companies and on the New Vegas Strip. Mojave merchants also accept nonstandard variants, such as Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle caps.

Characteristics
Bottle caps seal the opening of a bottle and are typically colorfully decorated with the logo of the brand of beverage. Plastic caps are used for plastic bottles, and metal with plastic backing is used for glass.

Nuka-Cola bottle cap


Standard Nuka-Cola bottle caps featuring 21 crimps and ridges, used as the basic form of currency throughout many of the American wastes. Their value differs throughout the game, as in Fallout: New Vegas they don't appear to be worth as much as in Fallout 3.

Counterfeit Nuka-Cola bottle cap


Physically they appear identical to standard Nuka-Cola bottle caps and are presumably intended to be used for trading in place of actual bottle caps. They are produced by unknown persons, have no trade value, and cannot be used for any monetary purpose.

Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle cap


This nonstandard variant, taken off Sunset Sarsaparilla bottles, is used in the Mojave Wasteland alongside Nuka-Cola caps.

Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle caps bottle cap


A rare variant of the Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle cap, featuring a blue star on the underside of the cap. These can be traded in to Festus at the Sunset Sarsaparilla Headquarters for a reward.

Bawls bottle cap
Bawls is a real-world energy drink with a guarana flavor that replaced Nuka-Cola as the main post-nuclear soft drink of choice in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. This special type of bottle cap are valued as 50 times that of a Nuka-Cola bottle cap.

Behind the scenes

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