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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cwtokenman, post: 589480, member: 2100&quot;]Good post Clinker,</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; I don&#039;t comment on them often, but I always enjoy reading your posts. Keep up the good work!</p><p><br /></p><p>Just to add a few points, the term shinplaster was used during the Hard Times era of the 1830s. I think the term originated at that time, but I am not positive of that. During the Civil War, coins were hoarded to such an extent, that even counting the coins sitting in banks there were about 8 coins per person in circulation (a quick check of my pocket revealed 21 coins). </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; As far as spending stamps, at first they were carried and spent as were coins. As one can imagine, they did not hold up well, and often became stuck together. That was followed by placing the stamps in envelopes with the value written on the outside. It seems that it didn&#039;t take long for people to start being dishonest and transit companies soon found that people were using empty envelopes to pay for fares, and it was too cumbersome to open each envelope and count the loose stamps, and that practice became unacceptable. John Gault came up with the idea of encasing the postage stamps so that the value was easily seen while still being protected. The merchants&#039; desperation to make change is evident in their willingness to pay the rather large premium to have postage stamps encased, especially the smaller denominations.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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