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V11 2008 INDEX
E-SYLUM ARCHIVE
LOW VALUE COINS BEING SMUGGLED OUT OF INDIA
Dick Johnson wrote the following after reading an article
about the smuggling of coins from India. -Editor
Metalworkers in
Bangladesh are smuggling low value coins out of India to melt them for
their metal content, to be made into razor blades, fountain pen points and
other small metal objects. This is creating a coin shortage in northeastern India. Merchants there are printing cardboard tokens same size as the coins to overcome the shortage. Sound familiar? This emergency solution has been used universally for hundreds of years.
It will continue in countries throughout the world until governments realize they must eliminate low denomination coins and turn to rounding off to a denomination in which the metal in that denomination coin is not vulnerable to melting.
American Congressmen and U.S. Treasury officials should note this trend as well. This is a lesson in economics they have not learned yet as our cent and five-cent piece face this same vulnerability.
They are calling it the new barter. Across tea gardens in
states bordering Bangladesh, workers are encouraged by the owners to
accept brown-coloured cardboard tokens instead of the metallic coins
issued by state-owned mints across the country. The cardboard tokens are
exactly the same size as the coins they represent, with similar values
marked on them. Workers use them to buy snacks and tea from the company
canteen as they would use coins — and get back change in the form of
sweets and cigarettes. That makes these drab tokens legal tender.
To read the article in an Indian newspaper: Ringing In The Change (http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?
filename=Bu020808ringinginthe.asp)
Wayne Homren, Editor
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.
To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com
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