Hey, print and web designers, you know how once in a while you need to do a layout for an article on money or economics or investments or something, and you need a quick thematic header graphic, like, a photo of coins or something, and even though you come across photos of coins all the time, suddenly you can’t find any good public domain, royalty-free photos anywhere to use for your design? I’m solving that problem right now. Meet The Coin Set.

I was about to cash a year of accumulated pocket change in the Coinstar machine last week, and I figured I’d take some photos of the coins first, just in case I ever need photos of coins. I’m releasing all the coin photos into the public domain for anyone else who needs closeup photos of piles of American coins. Get them here.

I’ll add to that set as I get more photos: always in the public domain, which means no more flipping through Clipart.com or Image Bank while reading the fine print on each photo, and you don’t need my permission to use, reuse, edit, or redistribute them. Some of the photos are kind of dark (no flash), but nothing a quick Levels job in Photoshop can’t fix. (This is probably a trivial drop in an ocean of public domain photos out there, but oceans need drops too, and these are my drops.)