The E-Sylum:  Volume 9, Number 7, February 12, 2006, Article 7

VOCABULARY WORD: BONISTICS

Last week I asked if anyone was familiar with the origin of
the term "bonistics", meaning the study of paper money.

Martin Purdy offered the following guess: "Is it based on
the French word "bon", meaning a coupon or voucher, perhaps'
I don't recall ever seeing the word before, though."   He
adds: "I don't believe the word is English.  "Bonism" in
the OExford English Dictionary is a doctrine that the world
is good, which banknote collectors may share, but hardly
relevant to the rest of us!  A quick Google search for the
term brought up mainly Russian, Bulgarian, Estonian, etc.,
sites, so I wonder if it's a Russian term ("bonistik" or
some such)?  I looked in the biggest Russian dictionary I
have here and found that "boni" refers to credit documents
(probably from the French word I mentioned earlier), so
it's not completely out of the question."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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