Shinplaster

Shinplaster was a piece of paper soldiers put inside their boots to cushion their shins against chafing and rash (see plaster).

[2] The breadth of these private systems and the lack of integrity and security caused Francis Spinner, Secretary of the Treasury to produce a new idea.

The process started where people used private notes tokens and Postal currencies as legal tender to accomplish their household and business purchasing.

The Minister of Finance decided to buy the American currencies at a very favorable rate, as they struck their replacement coinage in England, and they shipped these coins to New York to solve their problems.

[citation needed] In Canada, the term shinplaster was widely used for 25-cent paper monetary notes which circulated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

(Bank of Montreal museum)[citation needed] Shinplasters, or "calabashes" (as they were known in southern Queensland), were a feature of the Squatters' vast pastoral enterprises, and often circulated in the towns of the bush alongside and in place of legal tender.

There are tales of unscrupulous shopkeepers and others baking or otherwise artificially aging their calabashes given as change to travelers so that they crumbled to uselessness before they could be redeemed.

[4] As commerce and trade grew in centres such as Toowoomba, more and more calabashes were issued, and more and more merchants, squatters and others engaged in transactions were forced to give their 'paper' in change or as payment for goods and services.