Editing Scrip (section)

==History==
{{refimprove section|date=March 2025}}
A variety of forms of scrip were used at various times in the 19th and 20th centuries.

=== Company scrip ===

[[Company scrip]] is a substitute for currency to pay a company's [[employee]]s. 

In [[United States]] [[mining]] or [[logging]] camps where everything was owned and operated by a single company, scrip provided the workers with credit when their wages had been depleted. These remote locations were cash poor. Workers had very little choice but to purchase food and other goods at a [[company store]]. In this way, the company could charge enormous markups on goods, making workers completely dependent on the company, thus enforcing a form of [[loyalty]] to the company. Additionally, while employees could exchange scrip for cash, this could rarely be done at face value. This kind of scrip was valid only within the settlement where it was issued. While store owners in neighboring communities could accept the scrip as money, they rarely did so at face value, as it was worth less.{{Cn|date=June 2023}}

When U.S. President [[Andrew Jackson]] issued his [[Specie Circular]] of 1836 due to credit shortages, Virginia Scrip was accepted as payment for federal lands.

In the 19th century, the federal government in Western [[Canada]] offered money scrip (valued at $160 or $240) or land scrip, valued at {{convert|160|acre}} or {{convert|240|acre}}, to [[Métis in Canada|Métis]] people in exchange for their Aboriginal rights.<ref>"Free Land!" in [http://www.collectionscanada.ca/immigrants/021017-2212-e.html Moving Here, Staying Here: The Canadian Immigrant Experience] at Library and Archives Canada</ref>

During the [[Great Depression]], at the height of the crisis, many local governments paid employees in scrip. [[Vermilion, Alberta]] was just one example.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Chatters|first1= Charles H. |title=Is Municipal Scrip a Panacea?|journal=Public Management|date= March 1933|volume=9|doi=10.1111/j.1467-8292.1933.tb01317.x|pages=323–325}}</ref>

In the U.S., payment of wages in scrip became illegal under the [[Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/531.34|title=29 CFR 531.34 - Payment in scrip or similar medium not authorized.|website=LII / Legal Information Institute|access-date=2016-07-12}}</ref>

The expression ''scrip'' is also used in the [[stock market]] where companies can sometimes pay [[dividend]]s in the form of additional shares/stock rather than in money.<ref>List of companies paying scrip dividends</ref> It is also a written document that acknowledges debt.

After [[World War I]] and [[World War II]], scrip was used as ''[[notgeld]]'' ("emergency money") in [[Germany]] and [[Austria]].

Scrip was used extensively in [[prisoner-of-war camp|prisoner-of-war camps]] during World War II, at least in countries that complied with the [[Third Geneva Convention]]. Under the Geneva Conventions, enlisted prisoners of war could be made to work and had to be paid for their labor, but not necessarily in cash. Since ordinary money could be used in escape attempts, they were given scrip that could only be used with the approval of camp authorities, usually only within the camps. 

Poker chips, also referred to as [[casino token]]s, are commonly used as money with which to gamble. The use of chips as company money in the early 19th century in Devon, England, in the Wheal Friendship<ref>[http://crying-fox.com/mine01.htm Crying-fox.com]</ref> copper mine gave its name to a local village of [[Chipshop]].
=== Stamp scrip ===
{{Main|Demurrage currency}}
Stamp scrip, sometimes called coupon scrip,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.clevelandfed.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedtenant/clevelandfedsite/publications/economic-commentary/2008/ec-20080401-stamp-scrip-money-people-paid-to-use-pdf.pdf |title=Stamp Scrip: Money People Paid To Use |last=Champ |first=Bruce |date=April 2008 |website=Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland |publisher=Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Research Department |access-date=21 April 2025}}</ref> was a type of local money designed to be circulated and not to be hoarded. 

One type of this worked this way. Each scrip certificate had printed boxes; every month a stamp costing a certain amount (in a typical case, 1% of the face value) had to be purchased and recorded in a box, otherwise the scrip lost all its value. This provided a great incentive to spend the scrip quickly. The scheme was used successfully in Germany and Austria in the early 1930s, after national currencies collapsed. National governments considered themselves threatened by the success of stamp scrip projects, and shut them down; similar misgivings discouraged their later use elsewhere.<ref>{{cite news|title=A maverick money scheme from the 1930s could save the Greek economy|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/17/currency-scheme-1930s-save-greek-economy-eurozone-crisis|work=The Guardian|date=18 February 2015}}</ref>

The Alberta Social Credit Party government in 1937 issued [[prosperity certificate]]s, a form of provincial currency, in an effort to encourage spending. This scrip had boxes in which a stamp equal to 2% of the value had to be affixed each week. Thus, the value of the certificate was covered by the cost of the stamps at the year's end when it matured.