Early Worthless Money

Editor’s Note: For nearly 70 years, the feature-rich pages of Coins magazine, Numismatic News’ venerable sister publication, have tracked the history, fun and the growth of this great hobby, while also attracting new collectors to pursue what was once deemed the “hobby of kings.” Dusting off these time-aged issues, from the early 1960s and beyond, each installment of “Past Times with Coins,” written by its former longtime editor, explores what nuggets of interest they contain.

“To say a thing is ‘not worth a Continental’ is well known to declare something utterly worthless,” Coins wrote in an unattributed article, “Not Worth a Continental – inflation in early Currency,” in the October 1963 issue. “The expression does prove one thing: that the memory of bad money is long enduring.

“Our early monetary history reveals