Tintin Forums

I have been a bit perplexed at the piece of paper money that Captain Haddock gives to Carriedas in Flight 714. He calls it a five dollar bill, and it looks like one, too. Is this just in the American edition, or did Herge make it be an American dollar (for some reason)?

It's certainly an American 5 dollar bill in the UK editions - in the text and the pictures - and I presume it is in the Belgian original.

I think US dollars were and still are a generally accepted and easily-changed currency in many parts of the world. Haddock might have had difficulty spending or changing Belgian francs in a place like Jakarta, the Belgian franc being a relatively minor currncy on the world stage. (This book predates the Euro by a few decades, of course.)

Even today, I've noticed that UK guide books sometimes recommend US dollars as the best currency to take when travelling in parts of the developing world. Of course, when Haddock gets to Australia, he'll have to change his US dollars or Belgian francs into Australian dollars (unless he already took out some Australian dollars before leaving home). But he probably wouldn't need to bother changing any of his money into Indonesian currency for their short stop-over in Jakarta airport. I'd guess that in the late 1960's, the airport bar there would have accepted US dollars. (Maybe it still does. Sadly, I've never been there.)

Branched off thread: "Flight 714 - Why Djakarta, not Jakarta?"

The Currency rate in Jakarta is VERY LOW! Haddock won't be bothered to change the money. You know that 1 Singapore Dollar is equal to just 20000 rupiah and you could get 3 Cokes with that amount of money. Coke in Singapore is usually sold at SGD$1.30 per can (330ml). Jakarta sold Coke for I think 10000 rupiah per can.

1 million rupiah = 400 or 500 SGD Dollars I think.