Traverse City Bay Bucks

[mmarotta]

In 2002, living in Traverse City, Michigan, I heard a local NPR interview with two "community activists" who were heading a committee to create a community currency.  They said that they had heard that TC had its own currency during the Great Depression, but they had not seen the money itself.  I knew where to find it.  I went to the local coin store and talked to The Coin Guys.  They lent me some.  I scanned it, wrote an article for the local alternative paper (here)http://www.northernexpress.com/editorial/features.asp?id=138 and joined the committee. 

I showed them the Depression Scrip and paper money from VietNam, the Caribbean, and other places. 

We decided to find designers at the the local college, Northwestern Michigan.  They formed a design team and ran the project as a model business for a class project.

About two years later, Bay Bucks hit the streets, having signed on about 50 businesses and about 200 individuals who would issue and/or honor them.  The key player is the Oryana Food Cooperative, the largest alternative business in the area.  Other participants include alternative healthcare providers, skills trades and crafts (roofers, electricians) and farmers.

To find out more, visit the Bay Bucks website: http://www.baybucks.org.  A more detailed account appears on the MSNS Website  www.michigancoinclub.org Articles Archive.

[BCNumismatics]

Mike,
  You should upload some photos onto http://www.complementarycurrency.org .

Have you thought about uploading some photos onto www.worldofcoins.eu & www.cointalk.com/forum as well?

Aidan.

[mmarotta]

Thanks.  The Bay Bucks management team handles all the connecting and contacting.  I just helped create the physical medium.

I can be guilty of cross-posting.  That is the reason why I consciously avoid it without some over-riding motivation.  I am active on CoinTalk and I just found out about World of Coins, which, in fact, I tout along with Coins are Fun in an up-coming "Internet Connections" column.  Basically, I feel strongly about ownership.  I want Stefanie to have as much original and unique material as possible.  Cross-posting lessens the value of work.

... just my opinion..

But I am pleased that you liked the efforts. 

[BCNumismatics]

Michael,
  We also have a few community currencies over here in New Zealand.

I haven't seen any of their notes though.

I do have some examples of the Chatham Islands' own banknotes,which were in circulation between 2000 & the end of 2002,plus 2 examples of the never seen polymer plastic banknotes from the Riviera Principality (a short-lived state in New Zealand that was in existence from 1996 to 1998),along with some of the Riviera Principality's coins,& the Chatham Islands 2001 $5 coin.

Aidan.

[mmarotta]

Many shades of grey and few bright lines demarcate community currency, micronations and cinderellas.  For instance, TrueDungeons is a live action role playing game that created its own coins to stand for weapons, scrolls, potions, etc.  Other LARPs use coins in their communities in more traditional ways, echoic of that Middle Earth alternate reality.  These are communities, indeed, and their currencies work for them according to their cultural contexts. 

Hutt River Principality stands out, of course, and it has many imitators, none as far as I know as successful or determined.  HRP has published pictures of its representatives shaking hands with officials from Taiwan and marginal states from Europe.  HRP has its own passport which its users have stamped at entry points -- now an archaic custom, but still official recognition.

Any bar can issue good-fors and many have.  On my personal webpage www.washtenawjustice.com under Numismatics, you will find three bar tokens.  Here in Detroit, the new community currencies center on entertainment businesses. 

All of that being as it may, in the case of Traverse City, the community activists consciously sought another medium for empowering their community.  It took several years to roll out and there were some efforts that were either false starts or exploratory investigations, depending on how you viewed them.  For TC Bay Bucks, getting businesses of all kinds on board was important.  The crafts and trades supplemented the local food co-op, Oryana.  Everyone has to eat.  Oryana Co-op buys local farm goods.  They are the largest alternative lifestyle employer in the region and their employees agreed to accept Bay Bucks for part of their wages.  This all took time to lay out and set in place.

That is a bit different from declaring yourself an independent state, printing up colored paper and selling it to collectors as "money."

[BCNumismatics]

Mike,
  I am having a bit of trouble trying to convince the team who run www.tantaluscoins.com of the benefits of replacing their gallery program with the one from www.photopost.com ,which www.zeno.ru uses.

If they did that,then the benefits would have a flow-on effect for the study of numismatics,including the area of community currencies.

Community currencies,being in circulation,have become accepted as a branch of numismatics.Unfortunately,there is not yet a way of cataloguing the various issues from various countries.

Aidan.

[BCNumismatics]

Mike,
  Here's a link that will be right up your street; www.wais.org.nz .

I'll be posting something up on http://coinchat.org/forums/index.php as well.

Aidan.

[Scottishmoney]

Some local currencies use rather non-traditional formats, preferring to try the avant-garde in design:

[BCNumismatics]

David,
  Those designs remind me of this; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural_franc .

They also remind me of both Sergei Mavrodi's MMM notes denominated in Biletov & the Lewes & Stroud Pounds.

The Stroud Pound website is at http://www.stroudpound.org.uk .

Aidan.

[BCNumismatics]

Mike,
  Here's an example of a historic Indian community currency; http://www.numismondo.com/pm/ind/indexN500.htm .

It wasn't recognised by the Government of British India as currency,but it was allowed to circulate with the official sanction of the Maharajah of Mysore.

Here's a group in relation to the community currencies of the world; http://www.coinnetwork.com/group/worldcommunitycurrencies .

Aidan.