{"id":31654,"date":"2020-07-09T00:05:15","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T07:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_quick&p=31654"},"modified":"2020-07-28T09:28:01","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T16:28:01","slug":"clamshell-currency","status":"publish","type":"custom_quick","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/article-short\/clamshell-currency\/","title":{"rendered":"Clamshell Currency"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early March 1933, a man walked into the Hi-Way Cigar Store in Pismo Beach, California, and laid a huge clamshell on the counter. \u201cGimme a box of cigars,\u201d he said. That day, the clam was paying.<\/p>\n

It might sound like a weird dream, but we have a smattering of evidence that something like this actually happened. The evidence is in the form of a shell inscribed with the words \u201cGood for one dollar on demand at Hi-Way Cigar Store\u201d\u2014one of 19 similar shells that survive in a special collection at Pismo Beach City Hall. This strange currency was dated March 1933; its roots lie in the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

In an era of economic turmoil, thousands of banks were failing and Americans\u2019 trust in the institutions had evaporated. Fearing that their money was no longer safe at the bank, many people had emptied their accounts and stashed dollars at home\u2014which, unfortunately, further undermined the banks. To redress the situation, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared a nationwide bank holiday, from March 6 to March 9, 1933, during which withdrawals were frozen. This gave his administration a chance to stabilize the banking system.<\/p>\n

The thought of having to go for four days without readily available cash shocked Americans. Around the country, businesses began issuing IOU-style notes or ersatz dollars\u2014often called scrip currency\u2014in the form of metal or wooden tokens so that everyday transactions could continue even when retailers couldn\u2019t easily issue change to customers. In Pismo Beach, however, locals turned to a different resource: the shells of the Pismo clam, a large, edible clam once plentiful in the coastal waters of central California.<\/p>\n

The shells were completely different from any other scrip currency being used at the time, says Joshua Smith, a research assistant at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, who has studied the Pismo Beach collection and recently published a research paper describing the shells and their purpose<\/a>.<\/p>\n