The Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP), a free online numismatic archive and encyclopedia, has added to its database the quarterly Food Stamp Change Newsletter, which served collectors from 1980-84.
With U.S. food stamps denominated in dollars, stores across the country made change for odd amounts by using privately issued tokens. “The number of variants ran into the thousands, and the collector urge to create order from the disparate issues took root,” reads an update on the NNP website.
Jerry Schimmel, an award-winning numismatic author from California, launched the newsletter in 1980. “Collectors’ interest was not ultimately sufficient to sustain the publication, and Schimmel wrapped up the newsletter in 1984, with the last two issues serving as an index to the series,” adds the NNP website.
Now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – or SNAP – the federal aid program was reworked in the 1990s as various states phased out paper stamps and began using debit cards.
To read the Food Stamp Change Newsletter, visit nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/547434.