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In the 1860s, the problem was accumulation – a side effect of the Civil War – so traders, corporations and local governments tried to print their own money, called shinplasters. Congress sought to eliminate the practice with an 1862 law banning such private currency, but shinplasters flooded cities from New York to Richmond, Virginia.
“We think the sovereign or the state has a monopoly on investing money with value, but American history has repeatedly proven that this is not the case,” said Joshua Greenberg, a historian and editor of Commonplace, an early American newspaper.. “Whenever there is a decline or a shortage, perhaps you have lived in a rather rural place, the shinplasters have filled that void.”
Arguably, isolated versions of shinplasters have re-emerged in recent years, he said. In western Massachusetts, you can exchange federal bills with BerkShares. Northern Michigan has Bay Bucks. In central Florida, Disney dollars can still offer you a soda or fries.
People who save pennies
Coins will always have defenders in curators and collectors such as the 26,000 members of the American Numismatic Association. The group’s director of education, Rod Gillis, hopes they never stop circulating. “I would really be sorry if we became a cashless company,” he said. “I wouldn’t want us to lose our historical perspective.”
It called coin representations of our history and culture at any given time. Before the penny featured Lincoln, it featured Lady Liberty in a Native American headdress. President Franklin D. Roosevelt landed on the dime due to his efforts to stop polio during the 1940s “March of Dimes”.
“Projects don’t just happen by chance,” he said. “You can learn so much about our culture simply by learning what appears on our coins.”
And coins have outlived other inventions – paper bills, stock markets, E-ZPass – outlasting many of the monarchies, republics and empires that were created to hold together. Their value as artifacts is “wonderful,” said Dr. Fleur Kemmers, an archaeologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt. He called ancient coins “historical documents”, passed down by people across centuries and continents as they haggled, hoarded and made their way into daily life. He said that in design, material composition and uncovered locations, coins can reveal clues to culture, politics, religion, industry, commerce, and home life.
