Bottle cap

Bottle Caps are the standard currency in Fallout, Fallout 3, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, and Fallout: New Vegas.

In Fallout 2 regular money has been introduced and bottlecaps have been rendered useless and can only be found in Broken Hills. They are also called Hubbucks, because they originated from the Hub.

Bottle caps make a return as the standard currency of the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3. In addition to bottlecaps, a form of pre-war currency (most likely American Dollars) can also be found in the ruins of DC which can then be sold to merchants in return for bottle caps. Bottle Caps can also be put to use in weapon form as one of the major components of a Bottlecap Mine.

In Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, there is a special kind of bottlecap called the Bawls Bottle Cap, which comes from Bawls. They can be sold for 50 regular caps each.

History
Bottle caps are backed by The Hub merchants in the Core Region. The reasoning for their support is that the technology to manufacture bottle caps and paint the surface has been lost in the Great War, which would greatly limit any counterfeiting efforts. Secondly, there is a limited number of bottle caps, which would serve to preserve their value to some degree. There is no explanation whatsoever given for the use of bottlecaps in DC.

The issue of some concern is that with time, the number of bottle caps will decrease due to wear. This may be offset to some extent by the fact that many old bottlecaps not already in circulation remain to be found. Also, unopened bottles of Nuka-Cola have one cap on top, which is added to the players inventory. Though after drinking a bottle of Nuka-Cola, an empty Nuka-Cola bottle is not added to the player's inventory nor dropped on the floor as litter.

Behind the scenes

 * All standard bottlecaps feature 21 crimps and ridges.