There's also history in playing cards as money. This is a little long...:
New France comprised most of what is now eastern Canada and the eastern United States. The Gulf of Mexico was the southern border of New France. However, as a result of the disastrous economic policies of the French government, of which the playing card money was a part (as well as a symptom of), all of this territory was lost by the French.
1. Scarcity of coins in the French colony.
The king of France (I believe this would be Louis XIV) sent a Governor who administered the colony using civil servants and soldiers. Trade within the community was limited by the scarcity of a means of exchange, specifically coins. Originally trappers used hides as money, but colonists came from France carrying the coins of their country. The problem was that, as in other colonies, metallic coins had a tendency to either leave the colony as payment for manufactured products from France, or, they were hoarded and hidden away as too valuable to pay for goods with. Thus coins sent to the colony at great expense left by the same boat they came on, or simply disappeared. They tried many different ways to keep the coins in circulation, but nothing worked.
2. The Governor finds a solution.
In 1685 the annual boat that brought goods and coin was due to arrive in the summer but did not reach the colony until January. The coins were needed to pay the troops and that left the soldiers without pay for 8 months! The Governor, having tried everything possible (like feeding the soldiers on credit, letting them work for peasants...) decided to requisition all decks of playing cards in the colony. He then had each card cut in quarters, wrote a monetary value on each quarter of card, then signed and stamped them. Then he let it be known that these cards had to be accepted for payment of anything for sale in the colony, without any rise in prices. The soldiers were paid with these cards and the merchants accepted them as payment. When the boat finally arrived, each and every card was exchanged at par with the coins of France. All the cards were destroyed after the conversion to coin, and life returned to normal.
3. It worked so well the first time...
The Governor used this trick every year, issuing more and more cards each time, but did so against the strong disapproval of the king. Sometimes paper was now used instead of playing cards, which had become harder to find, and there were ongoing losses to hoarding and purchases of goods from France. Around 1706 the exchange of cards for coins was already random, the king being less generous with this colony that brought him so little in return. Since the cards were no longer dependable they were eventually exchanged at a third of their original value if merchants would take them at all. By 1713 inflation was at 400%. After several unsuccessful attempts to convert the outstanding cards to real value, the Governor reduced the number of cards being issued and the colony began to suffocate from a lack of money for exchanging goods and services. People tried to cope with credit, IOUs and trade. Money was so badly needed that in 1729 merchants sent a petition to the king to reintroduce the playing card money. He accepted and the cycle began again, leading to strong inflation and a loss of trust in paper money (especially in 1755 during the 7 years war against the English). Peasants refused to sell their goods for anything other than metallic coins and shopkeepers raised their prices every week. Coins still disappeared as people hid them from the government which was requisitioning them (taking them back) for it's own uses. The playing card money was over.
*This is very simplified. For more information you can go to:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Jacques-de-Meul ... Card-Money" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
