Here's an interesting NY Times article on the topic... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/arts/design/22stamps.html
Amazing! A typo in the New York Times: "master dye" instead of "master die." Sorry--compulsive proofreading is professional affliction. I find food stamps a logical extension of paper money collecting. The obvious comparison is Military Payment Certificates, which no longer have redemption value, but have considerable collector demand. Personally, I think food stamps are even more appealing, because they were intaglio engraved, whereas MPCs were printed using commercial lithography. As Lettow points out, food stamps offer many of the same niche collection possibilities of paper money. This is one of the reasons eBay's stubborn refusal to open its marketplace is so irksome. Without a broad, convenient way to buy and sell these, this field of collecting may never take off. And there's really no reason it shouldn't.
It doesn't but it does have to do with numismatics as part of the study of money and money substitutes. The food stamps were a money substitute.
Food stamps are considered by some people to be obsolete money. Besides that some of them look pretty nice. When I have seen them on ebay they go for way too much money tho'.
You've seen these sell on eBay!? I thought that was verboten. That's the basis of the thread mentioned earlier -- http://www.cointalk.com/t162635/ If you see another completed transaction, please post a link.
Something of which I was unaware, Food Stamps were legal tender...making them obsolete currency. I guess it's alright to buy and sell Food Stamps now that they're no longer legal tender. However, I would think there would be something morally wrong (at a minimum) selling public assistance. When I lived in Maine in the '70 I personally knew people that were on welfare, receiving food stamp and housing assistance, subletting their apartments, and working one or two jobs under the table. They didn't pay a lick of taxes, and would sell their food stamps 75¢ on the dollar because they didn't want to be seen using them. I'm sure that still goes on...only now they don't have to sell them because they have the discreet cards...to protect their "dignity". EDIT: Uh oh...I can feel myself getting started (like turning into the Hulk)...just put down the mouse and back away!
