TIME DOLLARS AND BONE MONEY AAA Historical Americana World Exonumia. BACK to Main LINKS page. TIME DOLLARS AND BONE MONEY by Michael E. Marotta During economic depressions, people invent new forms of money to fill the gaps. Two of the newest paper notes are Time Dollars and Bone Money. Following the Panic of 1929, many small towns created their own local currency. The town of Howell, Michigan, led the way with so-called "Prosperity Scrip" that had to be spent every three days. Today's economic slowdown may not be as severe. But towns still rely on new forms of money. In 1991, Ithaca, New York, developed a local currency called "Time Dollars." People there trade services in units of an hour with an hour being worth about $10 more or less. The idea of Time Dollars has been copied by other communities in both the United States and England. During the Autumn of 1993, people in Berlin saw the arrival of so-called Bone Money. The paper notes originated in the Prenz-lauer Berg district. This neighborhood is popular with young artists and writers, similar to New York City's Greenwich Village or the Left Bank of Paris. They called it "bone money" because the numbers were designed in the form of bones. Neighborhood retailers and restaurants accepted these notes. The experiment ran for three months. Then, the remaining notes were sold at an auction to raise money for charity. Time dollars and bone money may not take the place of the coins and bills you carry, but they have certainly earned their place in history along with wooden nickels, prosperity scrip and Hard Times tokens which were invented during other economic recessions. MONEY -- In our modern world, we see the government as the source of money. Our coins and paper come from a centralized, public body. In fact, you have probably also handled quite a lot of private money. By definition, money is anything which you accept now to trade for something else later. This includes merchant tokens. Restaurants, diners, video game and amusement halls, are most likely to issue tokens but tokens can come from any kind of business, from lumber yards, to tire stores, to barbershops. Tokens have a long history going back at least to the 1300s. In colonial America almost any coin would be accepted in trade and many private issues circulated. In the late 1700s Britain's coinage was in a state of chaos. However, the new industrial methods allowed merchants to produce literally tons of penny and half-penny tokens. In America and Canada, the great depression of 1837 brought hard times and financial chaos. Without enough government money to carry daily commerce, people again minted their own copper coins. In America, hundreds of kinds of so-called Hard Times Tokens were issued by businesses and by privateindividuals. This tradition continues into our own time. In addition to merchant's tokens -- called good-fors because they are usually good for 10 cents or some other amount in trade -- you can find a wide array of privately-issued money. If you special-order your own checks to reflect your personal tastes, this is a form of private money. Credit cards, debit cards, and phone cards that carry clever designs or special messages or commemorative patterns are another form of private money. In fact, even the coupons you cut from the newspaper are a form of privately issued money. COIN CHATS (c) Copyright 1998 by mercury @well.com If you know of additional articles, please send me an e-mail at hartzog@exonumia.com.