Maksim's On-Line Museum

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  • Home
  • North America
    • U.S. Capitol Flag
    • Coal Mine Scrip
    • Woodstock Ticket
    • Cable Car Cable
    • Pitch Pine Torch
    • Alcatraz Concrete
    • Ringling Bros. Staff Pin
    • Montgomery Bus Token
    • WTC Ticket
    • KKK Membership Card
    • Archaic Arrowhead
    • Prohibition Prescription
    • Smokey Bear Pinbacks
    • Gold Rush Nuggets
    • Edison Disc Record
    • Hoover Dam Cable
    • Jack Dempsey
    • Cal Ripken, Jr.
    • Bre Pettis
    • Steve Wozniak
    • Robert Ballard
    • Glenn Miller
    • El Cazador Shipwreck Coin
    • Panama Canal Matches
  • Political
    • Iranian Hostage Crisis
    • Watergate Scandal
    • White House Easter Egg
    • Eisenhower Rally Ticket
    • CCC Scrip Tickets
    • Condoleezza Rice
    • Gail Halvorsen
    • Berlin Wall
  • Military
    • Stalag POW ID Tag
    • Disney WWII Insignia
    • D-Day Barbed Wire
    • OPA Ration Tokens
    • WWII Polish Home Army Badge
    • Ships for Victory Pin
    • Crimean War Button
    • Korean War Safe Conduct Pass
    • USO Record Home
    • Vietnam War Mess Token
    • Kamikaze Recognition Slide
    • Kilroy Was Here
    • WWII Monopoly Pieces
    • Red Cross Thimble
    • Pearl Harbor Tool Tag
    • U-boat Badge
    • Red Ball Express Patch
    • Allied Military Currency
    • William McRaven
    • Fred Sutherland
    • Woody Williams
    • Harry Ettlinger
    • Richard Cole
    • Charles McGee
    • George Sakato
    • Chester Nez
    • Don Walsh
    • Joe Kittinger
    • Trinitite
    • Revolutionary War Cannonball
    • Antietam Bullets
  • Aeronautics and space
    • Chuck Yeager
    • Catherine Coleman
    • Soyuz Heat Shield
    • Crawlerway Rock
    • Shuttle Challenger AFRSI
    • Bernice Haydu
    • Edgar Mitchell
  • Automotive
    • Model T Radiator Cap
  • African
    • Anti-Apartheid Pin
    • Maersk Alabama Hijacking
    • Okpoho Manilla
  • Natural
    • Organ Cave
    • Woolly Mammoth Hair
    • Shiva Lingam Stone
    • Mount St. Helens Ash
    • Mosasaurus Tooth
    • Knightia Fish Fossil
    • Megalodon Shark Tooth
  • European
    • Viking Fibula Brooch
    • Olympic Clay Pigeon
    • Chernobyl Liquidator Badge
    • Titanic Coal
  • Asia
    • Great Wall Of China
    • Sikhote-Alin Meteorite
    • Petrified Wood
    • Commemorative Coins
    • Greenbrier Bunker Key
    • World Stamps
    • Russia
  • Feedback

Coal Mine Scrip

Scrip, as used in coal mining, was essentially a credit system. When an employee needed a pay advance to hold him over until the next payday he was given an advance in company scrip which was good only at the company store. This advance was charged against his payroll account and was deducted from the amount due at the next payday. In order to obtain cash some miners sold their scrip at a discount. Since payday was generally once every two weeks or once a month it was necessary for most miners to use this credit system, which had the advantage for the company of making captive customers of its employees since the scrip was only good at the company store where many companies inflated prices so that they made a healthy profit from the coal they sold and from the goods their employees bought at the company store. Coal scrip was generally in the form of metal tokens, paper punch cards and ticket books. Scrip tokens began to be used in the U.S. in the late 1870s and continued in use into the early 1950s.
Two scrip tokens are owned.  One is from the Junior Mercantile Company in Omar, WV, where my great aunt worked when she was young.  The second is from the Island Creek Stores Company in Holden, WV.  My great grandfather was a mine foreman for Island Creek Coal Company. 
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