College currency is a type of practice paper money that at one time was used in business training schools. Most college currency dates from the late 19th Century. Many different schools printed college currency. The different types were cataloged by Herb and Martha Schingoethe in their 1993 treatment, College Currency, Money for Business Training.
The above note was printed for use in the Scandinavia Academy of Scandinavia, Wisconsin. The Academy was founded in 1891 by the United Lutheran Church in the small, central Wisconsin town in Waupaca County. The school’s first building was dedicated on Reformation Day in 1893 and opened for classes on November 1.
The school was to be an “educational institution on the High School plan, also offering a Business Course, whose atmosphere and general management should be permeated with christian principles and be conducive of a healthy and moral growth to those who should frequent the school.”
The original school building burned in 1919. It was rebuilt in 1921 and the curriculum was enlarged to include junior college classes. The name was changed to Central Wisconsin College to reflect this. That institution closed in 1932. The buildings then housed the local Union Free High School and are still standing.
Laurence M. Larson (Source: University of Illinois)
The note identifies L.M. Larson as Principal and P.J. Lyng as Cashier. Laurence M. Larson was named the school’s principal in 1894. Larson was a Norwegian immigrant who attended Drake University. He left the Academy to attend further studies at the University of Wisconsin. In 1907, he was made a professor of history at the University of Illinois where he finished his academic career. He was a prolific writer concentrating on Medieval Norse and English history.
Peder J. Lyng (Source: ancestry.com)
Peder J. Lyng was a graduate of the initial class from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota in 1893. He was hired in 1894 to head the Commercial Department (the business school) at Scandinavia Academy. Tragically, he died in January 1895 at his home in Waupaca.
Lyng’s brief tenure at the school narrows the date of printing of the notes. In addition to the $5.00 note, a 50 cent and $1.00 note are also known. The 50 cent note is somewhat peculiar in that it is the same size as the higher denominations and fractional currency had ceased being printed in the United States in 1876.
In January 1942, the Japanese introduced the Japanese Military Peso into circulation in the Philippines. Collectors refer to the Japanese notes as Philippine JIM (Japanese Invasion Money).
Japanese issued fifty centavo note from the Philippines. The Japanese did not issue coins in most of the areas it occupied during WWII.
Prior to the war, the US backed Commonwealth Peso was the circulating medium in the Philippines. The pre-war peso was valued at two pesos to a US dollar. When the Japanese introduced its military peso, it pegged the exchange value with the Japanese yen at 1:1. This vastly over-valued the yen versus the peso.The Japanese did not immediately invalidate the Commonwealth peso. The military peso was intended to circulate beside the Commonwealth peso.
One peso Japanese note for the Philippines. These notes were lithographed making them easier to counterfeit than an engraved note.
The purpose of an occupation currency is to require the occupied country to pay for the cost of its own occupation. The occupying power is not required to provide cover for its occupation currency so it essentially provides free money to itself to use on the occupied country’s economy. The occupation currency is used to pay the occupying military force its wages and to pay for requisitioned items and property.
Japanese issued five peso note for the Philippines from WWII. All of the Japanese notes shown here are from the first series. The second series was intaglio printed and depicted the Rizal monument.
Gresham’s Law is a theory of monetary policy that says that bad money will push good money out of circulation. The good money will be hoarded while the bad money will be spent as quickly as possible. In the Philippines, Gresham’s Law forced the Commonwealth peso out of circulation even before the Japanese forbade its use. Profligate spending by the Japanese and military loses caused significant inflation in the Philippines such that in early 1945 it took 120 military pesos to equal the value of one Commonwealth peso.
Japanese issued ten peso note from the Philippines during WWII. This was the highest denomination of the first series. Inflation had progressed so badly that by the end of the war the Japanese were issuing 1,000 peso notes.
Although the Japanese had conquered Manila and the other large cities, they did not have much control in the countryside and the jungle. Guerrilla units formed to resist the Japanese occupation. The guerrilla units were made up of native Filipinos and remnants of US forces who refused to surrender. Philippine President Manuel Quezon authorized many of the guerrilla organizations to issue notes in the name of the Philippine Commonwealth.
Twenty peso note issued for use by Philippine guerrillas in Cagayan. The guerrillas issued dozens of different types of notes. Unlike their Japanese counterparts, most of the guerrilla notes were redeemed by the government of the Philippines after the war.
In addition to the guerrilla units, the US inserted special operations teams into the Philippines by submarine. These units were originally furnished with pre-war Commonwealth peso notes for use in their operations in country. They complained, however, that the uncirculated notes they were given were not well-received because the new notes would be looked at with suspicion by Japanese authorities. The US Bureau of Standards developed a process to “circulate” the notes by tumbling them with dirt, coffee grounds and other material.
Series 1941 one peso note for the Philippines. The serial number on this not indicates it was one of those processed to simulate circulated currency by the US Bureau of Standards.
The notes processed by the Bureau of Standards can be identified by their serial numbers. The following notes, all Series 1941, were processed:
One peso
E6008001E-E6324000E
Five Peso
E1208001E-E1328000E
Ten Peso
E810001E-E870000E
Series of 1936 five peso note from the Philippines. It is within the serial number range of the notes requested by the US Army in 1944.
The Army then asked for Series 1936 notes. They were supplied with the following notes:
Five Peso
D3244001D-D3544000D
Ten Peso
D2024001D-D2174000D
Twenty Peso
D1664001D-D1739000D
One hundred peso
D41001D-D56000D
The units operating in the Philippines also requested that they be supplied with Japanese Military Peso notes. In order to meet this request, US Army authorities obtained them the only way they could — they had them printed in Washington. Ten million pesos of the first series of Philippine JIM were printed of which P8,300,000.00 were put into circulation by US and Filipino sources. The US printed counterfeit Philippine JIM notes can be identified by small imperfections in them. Examples of each will be shown below. The genuine notes are on the left in each of these images and the counterfeit on the right.
The small, curved line just below the upper right counter on the face of the counterfeit 50 centavo note is broken while it is a solid line on the genuine note.
The fingers in the scrollwork below the upper left counter on face of the one peso note come together on the counterfeit notes. They remain separate on the genuine notes.
The curved lines below the upper right counter on the face of the counterfeit five peso note connect with the bottom line. They remain separate on the genuine note.
There is a small tick mark between the numbers 1 and 0 on the upper left counter on the back of the ten peso notes. It is absent on the genuine notes.
One billion mark note issued by the German railway office at Altona in November 1923. Note the reference to one billion being equal to 1,000 milliarden.
In the early 1920s, the German economy began to teeter under the weight of the obligations imposed on the country by the Treaty of Versailles. Germany’s reparation payments had to be paid in hard currency. Starting in 1921, the Reichsbank began printing more and more paper marks in order to buy up the foreign exchange necessary to meet its treaty obligations. Inflation began to rapidly force up prices in Germany into 1922. The mark declined to 160 to a US dollar.
Germany was unable to meet its reparations payments in late 1922. In response, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr valley — the industrial heat of Germany — to ensure Germany met its obligations. The German government ordered a general strike in response to the occupation. The striking German workers continued to paid but the only way to raise the cash to pay their wages was to print more marks.
Ten billion mark note issued by the German railroad office at Karlsruhe. The denomination is the highest issued during the German hyperinflation of 1923.
These factors, coupled with the weakened state of the German economy, brought hyperinflation in 1923. At its peak in November 1923, the dollar exchange was 4,210,500,000,000 marks.
Draft drawn on the Deutsche Bank from the foreign exchange office of the United States National Bank of Portland, Oregon from November 1923. While the value is written as one billion in words, the German bank would have read the numerical value not as one billion but as as one milliarden, a thousand times less than one billion.
The hyperinflation necessitated the printing of higher and higher denomination notes. The face amount of banknotes and other instruments quickly went through the millions and into the billions of marks. Reichsbank notes topped out at 10 billion marks.
Check written in Novemnber 1923 on the Dresdner Bank in Berlin for 15,000,000,000,000 marks. This would only be 15 billion marks to a German. The exchange rate meant the drawer paid about US$3.75 for the check.
Foreign exchange departments at banks outside Germany found their customers making novelty checks in order to become paper millionaires and billionaires. But the banks did not always get it right. The German numbering system differs from that used in the United States. While US numbers go from million to billion to trillion, the German system goes from million to milliarden to billion. The checks shown above for 1,000,000,000 and 15,000,000,000,000 marks show this confusion in the numbering systems.
Check drawn on a German bank written by a German bank Brazilian Bank for Germany on another German bank (Norddeutsche Bank in Hamburg) for 10 billion marks. The written numerals (10,000,000,000,000) and the numerical words (10 billion) match on this check.
Numismatic Notebook 