Scrip - History

History

Company scrip was a credit against the accrued wages of employees. In the United States, where everything in a mining or logging camp was run, created and owned by a company, scrip provided the worker with credit when their wages had been depleted. These remote locations were cash poor. Workers had very little choice but to purchase meals and goods at a company store. In this way, the company could place enormous markups on goods in a company store, making workers completely dependent on the company, thus enforcing their "loyalty" to the company. Additionally, while employees could exchange scrip for cash, it was rarely done at face value. Scrip in this context was valid only within that area or town where it was issued. While store owners in neighboring communities could accept the scrip as currency, they rarely provided a 1 for 1 exchange. This was to avoid the risk of having coins/currency that were worthless anywhere else.

When U.S. President Andrew Jackson issued his Specie Circular of 1836 due to credit shortages, Virginia Scrip was accepted as payments for federal lands.

In 19th-century Western Canada, the federal government devised a system of land grants called scrip. Notes in the form of money scrip (valued at $160 or $240) or land scrip, valued at 160 acres (0.65 km2) or 240 acres (0.97 km2) were offered to the Métis people in exchange for their Aboriginal rights.

During the Great Depression, many local governments were forced to pay employees in scrip at the height of the crisis.

Scrip as a de facto form of currency within the setting of the mining or logging industry was discontinued around 1952.

Scrip is also related to the stock market where companies pay dividends in the form of scrip rather than paying actual currency. It is also a written document that acknowledges debt.

After World War I and the World War II, scrip was used in Germany and Austria; detailed accounts are in Notgeld.

During the Vietnam War, as well as earlier during the Korean War, U.S. soldiers were sent on leave with a scrip marked with expiration dates which could be spent at establishments cooperating in the program. This was done in part to encourage U.S. soldiers to seek their entertainment confined to these areas, but moreover was intended to deny Viet Cong "tax collectors" a prime source of revenue. The expiration dates on these scrips frequently led to a rush by soldiers on leave to spend currency, as well as for soldiers who had not spent their scrip on leave to exhange their scrip with other soldiers heading out to leave for fresher scrip or hard cash, often at an exchange rate that rather favored the outgoing soldiers.

Thought should also be given to chips. Commonly used as currency with which to gamble, the use of chips as company currency in the early 19th century in Devon, England in Wheal Friendship copper mine gave its name to a local village: Chipshop.