Star Trek icon Leonard Nimoy’s passing last week prompted Canadians to pay tribute to the late actor by marking up the image of the country’s former Prime Minister, Wilfrid Laurier, on the Canadian $5 bill with the “Vulcan” features of Nimoy’s TV character, Mr. Spock.
"Spock" your $5 bills for Leonard Nimoy pic.twitter.com/bKdKyC3l4q
— Design Canada (@The_CDR) February 27, 2015
“‘Spock’ your $5 bills for Leonard Nimoy,” the Canadian Design Resource tweeted last week, prompting hundreds of Canadians to share their creations online.
The phenomenon has apparently become so widespread that Laurier himself does not mind that Star Trek fans are drawing over his face on the currency.
“Adieu to the great Leonard Nimoy,” Laurier tweeted last week. “Honoured so many Canadians thought we looked alike & would ‘Spock’ their $5 bills.”
In response to the practice, the Bank of Canada issued a statement Monday saying that while it is not illegal to mark up the bills, there are “important reasons why it should not be done.”
“The Bank of Canada feels that writing and marking on bank notes are inappropriate as they are a symbol of our country and a source of national pride,” bank spokeswoman Josianne Menard wrote in an email to Canada’s Global News.
Canadian Trekkies have been marking up the $5 bill with Spock’s likeness for years, but Nimoy’s death accelerated the practice. As Huffington Post Canada notes, Laurier’s image has also in the past been converted to look like Professor Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series of novels.
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