Here's a topic that I haven't seen a thread about in a while. In the earlier part of the last century, there were various leper colonies in South America. These colonies were issued their own coinage, for fear of passing the disease along to people outside the colony. Of course, leprosy can't be caught from a coin. The US had a colony or two as well, but they used the same coins as the rest of us. I have three examples - one from Venezuela (who used the base 8 number system instead of the base 10 system, a carryover from the Real - I've always found that facinating). And two from Columbia. For a while, I kept these loose on my desk. It's fun to have someone pick it up and ask "what's this?" and say "oh, a coin from a leper colony". If you have your own leper colony tokens, please post.
Cool. What's the diameter? So 20 of those would make 1 Bolivar. And it would take 2 and a half of your coin to equal the face value of mine. So strange using a base 8 number system in decimals.
Cracked planchet on this last one? In Papillion the leper is giving him paper money and says: Take it. We only use it for gambling and bringing in female lepers, if you are going to catch leprosy it's better to catch it from money.
Didn't know that there was such a thing, really interesting. Also didn't realize that leper colonies persisted so late into our history. I'd always assumed that it was a disease that ravaged populations during biblical times and eventually went away due to herd immunity. Learn something new every day!
reminds me of the movie Papillion, when Papillion escapes to the Island with the Leper colony on it, and a leper offers him a drag of his cigar he's been smoking, Papillion takes a couple of drags, and the leper says" how did you know i have dry leprosy and it's not contagious? and Papillion says " i didn't" classic movie
I missed this thread. Very cool info. I too didn't realize, or maybe just never really thought about, their money system. @Michael K and the @Theborer I also thought about Papillion as soon as I read the first post. One of the best McQueen/Hoffman movies. Classic.
The US has two colonies, on in Louisiana and one in Hawaii. As mentioned they use regular US coins. There was also a colony in the Panama Canal Zone run by the US Palo Seco. They did have their own coins, two denominations. I have one of them. My collection of Leper Colony coins is nearly complete except for the coins from the Japanese colony. I think I am missing one Cullion piece, two Venezuelan pieces, one Brazillian, and one Palo Seco. I also have a full set of Cullion Colony paper currency. It is the only leper colony that had paper money.
. The one in Louisiana has been closed for several years now. But, if you didn't specifically check on it, you wouldn't know it. They were very quiet about it closing. I don't know the year it closed, but it was closed when Hurricane Katrina came through in 2005, because they turned it into a morgue for the victims out of New Orleans. It was located south of Baton Rouge at St. Gabriel.
Maybe need to re-open a colony....FL. instead of Louisiana....considering the latest 2023 CMMS statistics.
