NEW COINAGE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 284, 26 July 1932, Page 8

NEW COINAGE

WOODEN CURRENCY APPEARS IN AMERICAN TOWN. RESULT OF BANK FAILURES. Wooden money has made its appearance in the town of Tenino, Washington, U.S.A., — pessibly for the first time in history. This is one of the most remarkable results of the economic crisis America is passing through which has led to a Budget deficit that, by July, is expected to reach, at the existing rate of exchange, £500,000,000. During the last two years 3000 United States banks have closed down. Tenino's wooden money has been issued as a emergeney currency owing to the local Citizens' Bank closing its doors, thus dislocating business and causing a money famine. The currency is guaranteed by the trustess of the Tenino Chamber of Commerce and is valid during liquidation or six months after the bank's reorganisation, according to a Home exchange. Currency to the value of 4000 dollars has been issued, of which 800 dollars are in wood. The remainder is paper. The wooden money is- in; dollar pieces, 50 cents, and 25 cent pieces. They are roughly of the size of a British Treasury note, and are constructed of two extremely thin pieces of Sitka spruce wood cemented together with a sheet of paper between. They are scarcely heavier than a paper envelope of the same size. Sitka spruce is the chief product of the Tenino district, where veneers are made, so that the use of the township's product as an emergeney "currency is not illogical. ' The wooden pieces are fine examplas of veneer workmanship. The wooden is circulating on equal terms with ordinary U.S. currency, and, indeed, 25 cent wooden pieces have been sold to collectors for as high as a dollar not far from Tenino. In 1920 most German cities struck new emergeney small coins. Some were made of Royal Red Saxonian porcelain — others of aluminium, zinc or iron. One shop used soup cubes for small change. In 1915 Gh-ent issued iron coins. Australia used them also, and Italy followed suit in 1919. It has long been the custom, of course, for many Freneh towns to issue their own currency.