Warner Talso wrote a series of articles on a rare and interesting numismatic periodical called The Emergency Money Collector. They were published in the MPC GRAM, an electronic newsletter for collectors of Military Payment Certificates and other war-related numismatica. With permission I've been republishing them here for E-Sylum readers.
This article appeared in the May 10, 2010 issue (Series 11, No. 1929), and completes the series.
Thanks, Warner! To subscribe to the MPC Gram, write to MPCGram@yahoo.com.
-Editor
The Emergency Money Collector
VOL. II NO. 3 Fall 1953,
by Warner Talso
Arlie notes that West Virginia is suffering a heat wave. Temperatures up to 102 Degrees F. This makes working very hard and he has reduced this issue to 20 pages.
The feature article is “Interest Bearing Paper Money of the United States” by Arlie Slabaugh. This seven page article covers colonial notes, USG issues, CSA issues, state, county and city issues, and private issues (by loan companies and railroads). He mentions depression scrip and says that is a whole area of interest of its own.
Chapter V of “Russian Emergency Paper Money” by Vladimar M. Oushkoff is presented. This chapter discusses the issues of Central Asia. This region is remarkable for the number of issues and the use of silk instead of paper. Also, text is often in Arabic, rather than Russian. The author notes an interesting problem around 1921. At the time, notes were hand printed using engraved wooden plates. This is a slow process. A period of “wild inflation” ensued and printers could not keep up with quality printing. The result was smeared, partially printed notes that were barely readable. In 1922, a printer was hired to use lithography in the printing of currency.
Semirechye is a remote region on the Chinese border. Their currency was backed by opium stored in the State Bank vaults.
The British troops in Afghan Territory helped the Transcaspian Government by providing them with 500 roubles notes.
These are but a few examples of wide variety of interesting features of emergency currency in this region during the early 1900s. The author promises more in the next issue of this publication. (However, see below.)
An article, Some Emergency Issues of the Bank of France, by Arlie Slabaugh, discusses notes issued by the Bank of France (founded in 1800) through WWI.
Arlie offers for sale the local emergency scrip issued in Boise Idaho during WWII. During the “penny shortage”, these one cent small square scrip were printed. Now scare, Arlie offers them for sale at 2 for 25 cents.
Arlie lists his books, “Emergency Monies of the World, 1914-1924” and “The German Inflation”, that are for sale: The man certainly was a prolific writer.
Alas, this is the last issue of this publication. Arlie alludes to the next issue. He apparently had no plans, at that time, to discontinue publication. I wonder what happened.
To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
THE EMERGENCY MONEY COLLECTOR, VOL. 2 NO. 2
(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n19a17.html)
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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