A High Price to Pay

Collecting Foreign Money During Wartime

Words by Andrew Harman

Archives may be filled with family papers, artifacts, photographs, and myriad materials that retain their essence in the archives.  In fact, the context as to the creation of these records and how they relate to one another is what gives them historical value to researchers. Currency, however, completely changes its value as such once collected and stored while retaining a historical context.

Preserved long enough, money can be completely stripped of its value; or can it?

As the name suggests, the Center for American War Letters Archives at Chapman University collects the correspondence of American soldiers at war. But completing their story, we also collect the documents, artifacts, and photographs pertaining to their service or the loved ones they left behind on the home front that were often sent along with those correspondence. Often, American soldiers sent home the foreign money they found abroad. They were, in many ways, tourists picking up the collectibles. But currency, coinage, and bank notes are particularly interesting. 

According to the National Museum of American History, money and political propaganda have been intertwined in warfare since antiquity. Alexander the Great’s emblazoned visage on coins reached far beyond his armies, while today U.S. presidents adorn American bills. During the Second World War, the Japanese issued occupation pesos in the Philippines. Chinese currency was immediately confiscated and destroyed after the Cultural Revolution of 1949, and new money was printed to supplant any images of pre-communist rule. To a collector, these pieces are fascinating. Even without being considered a piece of political history, a coin stamped with the date freezes a moment in time. 

The study or collection of currency is called numismatics. My grandmother collected coins and bills from her travels and from the travels of friends. Today, I own her modest collection of “old money,” as I used to call it, from Canada to the Philippines, from Deutsche Marks to early twentieth century Franks. These coins no longer have the value they once represented as currency of the state, representative of a national bank, but to some they hold a great deal of value. The rarer the item, the higher the price; and there is an entire industry surrounding this revaluation. 

Auctioneers deal in rare bank notes and coins that hold worth well beyond their original market valuation. According to Heritage Auctions, “the world’s largest numismatic auctioneer,” a five-dollar bill from 1907 called a “woodchopper” note could be worth up to $200. One-dollar notes from 1862 may be worth up to $1000, depending on condition. But for the American soldiers overseas, these were mementos, collectibles to commemorate the time.

The “soldier as tourist” is a theoretical framework many historians have encountered or employed. Richard White discussed this in his paper “The Soldier as Tourist: The Australian Experience of the Great War” by arguing against the concept of foreign travel as tertiary to the experience of war, rather that it was “fortuitous… a well-established tourist ethos… had a direct impact on the way the troops reacted to the face of battle.” He continues to say that soldiers often overstayed their leave not out of fear, “but a staunch belief in their right to see England properly.” (War & Society, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp 63-77, DOI: 10.1179/106980487790305175)

As tourists, whether active, on leave, or after the war, soldiers took up the same pastime; they collect things. One of the collections in the war letters archives details the occasional morbidity of this practice. Lieutenant Richard Doolittle, an officer in a construction battalion in the South Pacific after the Japanese were pushed out, told his wife Ruth about hunting for souvenirs in the pockets of bodies that lay on the beach. He learned how to dive and went down to wrecks at the bottom of the sea hunting for “treasures.” Less gruesome, soldiers in the aftermath of battle would often collect trinkets and silks to send home; something foreign and exciting for their family to see. Bank notes and coins served that purpose perfectly. [Center for American War Letters Archives, Richard N. Doolittle Second World War correspondence (2015-085-w-r)].

Currency had no real value to the soldiers overseas. In some cases, the currency they encountered had become obsolete by their mere presence. Roger Highland served with the 38th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron in Europe and sent home stamps with Hitler’s face and Reichsbanknotes that were obviously of no use by the time he collected them. He even got his hands on some pesos from the Philippines printed by “The Japanese Government” with bold letters denoting their bank of origin, which by that point had lost all worth. Referred to as “invasion money,” these notes gained their value through intimidation, codified in the Japanese Acts punishable by death, and later through attempted failed litigation for their liability to a proper government backer. They now hold only the value of a rare commodity. [Center for American War Letters Archives, Roger Highland Second World War correspondence (2017-720-w-r)]

Another collection in the war letters archives, sent home by Paul J. Parks, spans a much larger area. Parks served as a musician, playing with his Army band “The About Faces” in the rear areas of North Africa and the Mediterranean region all the way through Iraq and what is now Pakistan. He collected artifacts such as luggage tags and a bar set from Morocco, and sent home bank notes from Italy, French Algeria, French West Africa, and the Military Authority of Tripolitania. These notes, like the others, held no value to him more than souvenirs to be sent home to regale his foreign escapades; an interesting notion considering the difference between combat troops and the musician that often stayed in hotels and ate at restaurants. [Center for American War Letters Archives, Paul J. Parks Second World War correspondence, photographs and memorabilia (2019-046-w-r)]

A peculiar artifact, one that has transformed in value from a fiat currency valuable through intimidation or liability to historical resource, currency is collected by archivists and personal collectors alike. When soldiers embarked on a terrible journey to distant lands, they experienced not only the tragedy of war but the exuberance of tourism. They collected money and saved it for quite a different reason than they otherwise might, and it eventually found a new home. Preserved for new generations, money in archives can be valuable!

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