# A float is money paid in before any of it is taken

> A cash tin's coin tray lifts out to show six unequal compartments and notes folded flat underneath — the shape of what a door actually takes in, after the float that started it.

August 21, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-cash-tin-and-the-float

One small cash tin, seen straight down, lid open on its hinge. The moulded tray that usually sits
inside has been lifted out and set to one side.

Six compartments in the tray hold six different amounts — two nearly full, two half, two nearly
empty. Under where the tray sat, notes lie folded flat.

## Why does a night need a float before anyone's paid to get in?

Because change has to exist before the first person hands over anything larger than the door price.

A float is coins and small notes put into the tin specifically so the first few transactions can be
completed — somebody arrives, hands over more than the door costs, and there has to be something to
give back. Without it, the first sale of the night can't happen at all. The float is usually put in
by whoever's running the door, counted in before it opens and counted back out at the end. For the
hours in between it's working stock, not income, even though it sits in the same tin as everything
else.

## Why are the six compartments so unequal?

Because the tray sorts by denomination, not by how the night is going.

Small coins fill a compartment fast; large notes fill one slowly. By an hour in, the compartment
holding change from a low door price is close to full while the one holding the largest notes still
has room. The unevenness in the tray isn't a verdict on the night — it's what any till in active use
looks like partway through, once real payments start landing in whatever denominations people
actually carry with them.

## What's kept under the tray, and why does that matter?

Because the tray only holds working change — the money worth keeping separate goes underneath it.

Lifting the tray out marks the point where the small transactions above it stop being the interesting
part and whatever's actually been taken starts. Keeping that flat and out of sight, rather than mixed
into the coins, is how one tin does two jobs at once: a working till on top, a growing total
underneath it that nobody needs to touch again until closing.

## Why does the wear on the tin matter?

Because a tin chipped at every corner has done this more than once.

New equipment tells you nothing. A cash box carried from one night to the next — dropped into a bag,
knocked against a doorframe on the way in — accumulates damage in the same places a float
accumulates the same job: corners first, because corners are what hits the world first. The wear is
a record of use, not of neglect, and it's usually the same tin every time.

## Do I need permission to print a cash tin?

No — a lockable tin with a lift-out tray is a generic object, made in near-identical form by many
manufacturers, the same way [a beer mat used for the same night's arithmetic belongs to nobody in
particular either](/stories/the-door-split-on-a-beer-mat). What needs permission is a specific
branded till, not the shape of a tin. Your own compartments, your own wear, your own notes folded
under your own tray, is the version that's actually yours.

## Does this only work for a door on a night out?

No — anywhere small cash gets floated and counted the same way applies. A market stall, a car boot
table, a school fair stand: the same tin, the same lifted tray, the same unequal compartments show
up wherever somebody puts their own money in first so a stranger's money can be taken later. None of
it accounts for who walked in without paying at all —
[that's tracked on a separate list, and it costs somebody too](/stories/the-guest-list-costs-money).

## Isn't a cash tin an odd thing to want on a shirt?

Not to anyone who's actually run one.

A float is invisible to everyone except whoever counted it in and out — nobody at the door sees it,
and nobody who paid the door price thinks about it. Putting it on a shirt puts a piece of the actual
mechanics on view, the same way [the count itself gets made visible once the night's
over](/stories/the-count-at-the-end-of-the-night). It reads because it's usually kept out of
sight.

## Does it print well?

Yes — it's a flat object shot from directly above, which keeps every edge clean.

The tin, the tray and the notes are all plain shapes with hard outlines and no perspective to
reconstruct. Charcoal, slate or another dark ground lets the tin's metal read without a highlight
pass, and the whole thing holds up in one or two inks — a dark body colour for the tin, a lighter
one for the coins and notes.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the tin at [JustOG](/) — what's in each compartment, and what's kept under the tray. Pick a
direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and
shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

The tray goes back in before the doors open. What's under it stays there until the night's done.