SHINPLASTERS
Upon
the beginning of the Civil War, Sussex county farmers began to
prosper, shipyards were busy, and 'hard' money became so scarce that
merchants found it necessary to use what was called 'shinplaster' for
use as small change in business transactions as a circulating medium
when small coins went out of circulation.
“Shinplasters”,
were pieces of paper money of small denomination’s with no coin
value nor bank backing. Just a slip of paper with a figure of value
written on it. They were issued by private persons, merchants, and
firms, as a form of fractional currency. “A small papernote uses
as money, a promise to pay a small sum without legal security during
the 1837 financial panic and the 1861 Civil War, when metal for
minting was scarce.
These
slips were a nuisance, easily counterfeited , soiled , lost or
destroyed by use. After 1878 they vanished with the passage of the
Bland Allison Silver Act.
Source:
Wilmington Evening Journal October 1, 1915, E.J. Edwards, The
Alexandria Louisiana, Town Talk, Rochester New york , Democrat &
Chronicle, and Handcock's History of Sussex County
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