Cigarette scrip

I recall reading an article last year about a POW camp in WW2. Apparently, the prisoners began using cigarettes as money, as many often do. But they even went so far as to issue notes valued in smokes. When Red Cross packages came through, the cigarette economy collapsed.

Has anyone else heard of this?

 

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not me, but i admit i dont know much at all about the different scrip found out there its so hard to even know a little about all numismatics has to offer lol

 

Here is an article that discusses this:

http://www.albany.edu/~mirer/eco110/pow.html

Here is another:

http://kottke.org/08/07/pow-camp-economics

 

Many thanks! That's precisely the article.

 

I can offer that I took a whole carton of Marlboro Reds to the USSR back in 1991, and yes, they were better than money. To this day I still have a whole display case full of Soviet army medals etc from a Russian soldier, cost me all of two packs of Marlboros. I remember when I handed him the cigarette packs he handed over right to his kommissar, she apparently was the smoker.

 

I got some smokes from East Germany...they were rolled very loose, they were harsh as hell, popped, and gave me a buzz...worst cigarettes I have ever smoked.

 

Even people in the USSR knew better than to smoke that stuff, they preferred Marlboro Reds.