Today in 1929 was known as Black Thursday, the start of the stock market crash that helped bring about the Great Depression.
In those days, people had to get very creative to handle the many economic challenges that were coming their way.
Like how, at one point, a community in California found a good stand-in for regular currency: clamshells.
This was in 1933, as Franklin Roosevelt was starting his first term as president.
He had promised to get people back to work and to fix the problems in the US banking system.
Both issues had pushed thousands of banks out of business.
So the new president declared a bank holiday, in which the banks would stay closed while Congress worked on new laws to stabilize the system.
That bought some time for the system, and for banks that were at risk of going under.
But for customers, it meant they couldn’t withdraw money from their bank accounts, even though there were still groceries to buy and bills to pay and money that needed to change hands like any day.
So Americans created workarounds in the form of scrip currency.
Customers and proprietors gave each other temporary forms of money to serve as IOUs, which they could settle once the banks reopened.
People made scrip out of what was available and in relative abundance.
For Pismo Beach, California, that was the shell of the Pismo clam.
A shop owner might write “good for $5” or “good for $1” on a shell, and add the details of their business on there.
They could then be used like cash, or actually more like a check, because on some shells people would write their names on the inside, sort of “endorsing” them.
Then, when the banks reopened, businesses and consumers could settle up their shell-based accounts with actual legal tender.
The bank holiday was relatively short, so the Pismo Beach foray into seashell-based currency was short-lived.
Except that the community brought the clamshells back into circulation in 2013 to mark the 80th anniversary of the originals.
They did the same thing in 2019, and they may do it again sometime in the future.
So hang onto your shells if you’ve got ‘em.
Most days, the Sequoia Park Zoo in Eureka, California gets its share of visitors who want to see the zoo’s three black bears.
Except that last week, one of the visitors was a black bear from the wild, who apparently wanted to hang out with the zoo bears.
A staffer said “overall, he was a very polite visitor.”
Clamshell Currency (Hakai Magazine)
When Seashells Were Money (Messy Nessy Chic)
‘Polite Visitor:’ Bear Sneaks Into NorCal Zoo To Visit Fellow Bears (Patch)
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Image via National Museum of American History/Creative Commons