--- title: '''Spocking'': The Weird Way to Ruin Money and Pay Tribute to Leonard Nimoy' description: To honor Leonard Nimoy and the iconic character he played on Star Trek, all you need is a $5 Canadian banknote and a black marker. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-03-02T15:53:50.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T05:24:33.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - Canada - Currency - Leisure - Leonard Nimoy - Money - Odd Spending - paper currency word_count: 276 canonical: https://money.com/spock-5-canada-bill-leonard-nimoy/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). !['Spocking': The Weird Way to Ruin Money and Pay Tribute to Leonard Nimoy](https://money.com/content.money.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/150302_em_niemoycanadabill.jpg?crop=144px%2C265px%2C425px%2C239px&resize=1012%2C569&quality=85&strip&ssl=1) [Sir Wilfrid Laurier](http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-wilfrid-laurier/) was a prime minister in Canada from 1896 to 1911, and his face is featured on the Canadian $5 bill. Apparently, some feel his face also resembles Leonard Nimoy, the instantly recognizable actor who served as *Star Trek*'s Spock, and who [died](https://time.com/3726304/leonard-nimoy-spock-dead/) last week. Starting a few years back, someone thought it would be funny to take older versions of Canada's $5 banknotes and artfully add some black ink to the profile of Laurier—darkening and extending the eyebrow, sharpening up the tip of the ear, scratching in a dark bowl-shaped helmet full of hair—so that the resulting image looked like Spock. (Another version of this game turned Laurier's mug into [Severus Snape](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/26/spock-canadian-5-bills-snape-photos_n_3818218.html) from the *Harry Potter* series.) Now that Nimoy has passed away, fans of the actor and the [highly logical Vulcan](https://time.com/3726374/nimoy-star-trek-mattered/) he played on TV and the movies are being encouraged to ["Spock" their Canadian $5 bills](http://mashable.com/2015/03/01/canadians-spock-bills/) in tribute. The ["Spock Your Fives" Facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/SpockYourFives)—yes, there is such as thing, founded in 2008—has heralded the "revival" of Spocking Fives. As you'd guess, word of this curious activity has spread on social media, like so: The parody Twitter account [@PMLaurier](https://twitter.com/PMLaurier)—yes, there is such a thing—recently wished "Adieu to the great Leonard Nimoy" in a Tweet that showed one of the manipulated bills, noting that he was "Honoured so many Canadians thought we looked alike and would 'Spock' their $5 bills." As for where and how, exactly, the idea of "Spocking" currency first began, the "Spock Your Fives" Facebook page only has this to say: "The origins of this mysterious tradition are shrouded in secrecy, although it is widely believed to be totally awesome." ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/spock-5-canada-bill-leonard-nimoy/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Art and Culture", "item": "https://money.com/art-and-culture/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "'Spocking': The Weird Way to Ruin Money and Pay Tribute to Leonard Nimoy" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/spock-5-canada-bill-leonard-nimoy/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/spock-5-canada-bill-leonard-nimoy/", "name": "'Spocking': The Weird Way to Ruin Money and Pay Tribute to Leonard Nimoy", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2015-03-02T15:53:50.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/spock-5-canada-bill-leonard-nimoy/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/spock-5-canada-bill-leonard-nimoy/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T05:24:33.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "'Spocking': The Weird Way to Ruin Money and Pay Tribute to Leonard Nimoy", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2015/03/150302_em_niemoycanadabill.jpg?quality=85", "width": 721, "height": 687 } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2015-03-02T15:53:50.000Z", "description": "To honor Leonard Nimoy and the iconic character he played on Star Trek, all you need is a $5 Canadian banknote and a black marker. 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