During the 18-19th century a lot of different coins, including fractional ones, were minted. They were different in weight, denomination and status. Those that were officially circulating as a means of payment in one period could have been banned as a means of payment in another period. Though it didn’t necessarily mean that they stopped being used by people. Some of the coins were chopped in times when the official lowest denomination was not small enough to help facilitate the trade. In line with aim of the workshop the plan is to add the Russian example into the pool of information on small change for global comparative analysis and to discuss whether the problem of small change, in the way it was set for the panel, is actually existing.

In a global approach of monetary phenomena, transnational monetary systems have found their opponents; among other factors, they include local and minor coins –as an antiparallel of institutionalised fractional currencies, later (mostly during 20th century) paper money issued by local institutions or local actors, and finally parallel monetary circuits in restricted geographical areas. On the other hand, complementary currency or minor coins were in use amid the framework of standardized monetary systems, as a reaffirmation of their ability to sustain enlarged monetary practise, often by low-levelled monetarized societies. Consequently, the paper will focus on this conceptual differentiation, concerning the usages of local coins, supplementary currency and parallel money. In addition, parallel circuits are located mostly in rural societies or in societies characterized by minor monetarization level. As a complement of a bottom-up approach, this research focuses on the un-institutionalized minor coins ‘’issued’’ by local institutions in crisis periods. In fact, local currencies of this type represent an eloquent example for the interaction between the global and the local, while the local issuing appears though during economic dystopia as a consequence of liquidity’s scarcity. In spite the fact that this type of local coin has no institutional feature, is often issued by local institutions or local actors in the purpose to guarantee -through their authority, although limited- a minimum of solvency for the citizens. Additionally, it is frequent that the visual form of these local currencies imitates sovereign money.

The research shows a pervasive emergence of monetary plurality during episodes of social, economic and political demise. We substantiate the pattern linking crisis and monetary plurality based on numismatic evidence. We start with a birds’ eye view of episodes between the 15th and the 19th centuries, to subsequently research in depth the two postwar periods in Europe, the hyperinflation in the German speaking countries, the Great Depression in the USA and the Spanish Civil war. These were all periods during which local and often handmade currency was better than no money at all for small daily payments. We conclude that emergency currencies were not only temporary solutions but provided windows of opportunity to pursue structural changes in the monetary system according to local possibilities and aspirations.

The growing importance of the discussion about small denomination coins and banknotes during the Latin Monetary Union History (1865-1927) and the progressive renationalization of their circulation lead to that seemingly paradoxical conclusion that the LMU died “from below” (small change) and not “from above” (metallic standard, silver to gold ratio). Two major reasons for that were the substitution dynamics bewteen fractional and minor currencies, on the one hand, and their long-range circulation, something that was not anticipated. The LMU history thus offers a fascinating example of how small change circulated and could eventually unhinge monetary systems.

From 1893 to 1898, Francesco Pastorelli devoted himself at least three times to the manufacturing and distribution of counterfeit money. Caught up with by French justice in 1898, its arrest and its judgment open a window on the life of a small forger and his social environment, as on the legal and monetary issues raised by this artisanal crime. But beyond counterfeit money, many ambiguities appear, as if it revealed the falseness within human relations and feelings. Thus, close and even less close relationships to Pastorelli hardly seem constrained by the use of his forged coins – at most they would abstain from manufacturing them – as they benefitted from Pastorelli’s pragmatic generosity, who thus broadcasted out its production. Each actor of this little drama sees herself thus assigned by the others a social position, either bad lot, prostitute or policeman, that evolved subtly according to the progress of the investigation and judicial instruction. It is then necessary to relativize the immorality of the witnesses as they tried to have Pastorelli bear the heaviest of the charges, i.e. to transform their stories of life, their punishable behaviours, their moral defects, in elements of charge or discharge. Thus are made visible to us the border between order and vice simultaneously with the many bridges between these two polar positions. After quickly having recalled the genesis, the course and the penal conclusion of the Pastorelli affair, we will highlight the ambiguous links between counterfeit money and true feelings.

Cowries (cypria moneta) prevailed as 'small change' in Bengal until the sixteenth century. The 'kapardakapurana' was used as unit of classification and calculation of land revenue (Wicks), and also as real money until the thirteenth century. Between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries cowries functioned as real money along with the silver 'tanka' coin issued by the Bengal sultans because of its efficacy in gendering everyday transactions (Deyell, 2010; 2011). Such was its efficacy as monetary unit that cowries continued to circulate until at least the seventeenth century, and there is a likelihood that they were used in rural transactions into the eighteenth century. My enquiry will be as to how, and by what means, this 'small change' was integrated into the 'larger' silver money that circulated in the Bay of Bengal (and in the Indian Ocean) in the early modern period--that is in the period from 1500 to 1800.

The legal Portuguese monetary system almost collapse after the IWW. The devaluation of the currency and the high scarcity of fractional currencies disturb the transactions. As a long run monetized economy the answer of the system was the issue of informal script notes issued by municipalities and some firms with local importance. How these notes were issue, accepted and circulated were the main questions of this paper. This was a case-study where trust and “local” social rules surpassed the problems of a standardized monetary system.

In the early modern German monetary policy and economy, small change was regarded as a crucial problem. While one group of princes and monetary advisors saw the production of small change as trigger of inflation, others were concerned of the country’s supply of coins with small face value. That is why, these monetary politicians were anxious to prevent a ban of this kind of coin, which had happened to a couple of the traditional small denominations in Germany. My short contribution will reconstruct the monetary debates and the means that territories employed to achieve the recognition of their small denominations.