Marshall Hole Currency
Marshall Hole is best known for issuing "Marshall Hole currency" in Bulawayo in 1900. During the Anglo-Boer War there was a shortage of small change and circulating coinage in Rhodesia. Marshall Hole, who was then serving as Government Secretary for Matabeleland and Civil Commissioner of Bulawayo, authorised the issue of small cards bearing a British South Africa Company postage stamp on the obverse, and an official handstamped signature on the reverse, and these cards circulated as emergency currency between 1 August 1900 and their withdrawal on 1 October 1900. Smith (1967: p332) says "£20,000's worth of stamps were used, and when circulation ceased... it was found that almost exactly £1,000's worth was still outstanding... This £1,000... was clear profit to the Administration and compensated Mr Hole for the ridicule the experiment provoked when he first proposed it."
The currency cards were issued in denominations of 2d, 3d, 4d, 6d, 1/-, 2/-, 2/6, 4/-, 5/- and 10/-, and bore two types of validation stamp. One type is inscribed ADMINISTRATOR'S OFFICE * BULAWAYO. The other type is inscribed ADMINISTRATOR'S OFFICE. The validation stamps were applied at Marshall Hole's office.
Read more about this topic: Hugh Marshall Hole
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—Samuel G. Engel (1904–1984)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)