Newman Portal Adds Food Stamp Change Newsletter

With food stamps denominated in dollars, how did stores make change for odd amounts? Simple – they issued privately produced tokens.  The number of variants ran into the thousands, and the collector urge to create order from the disparate issues took root. Jerry Schimmel led the way and began producing the quarterly Food Stamp Change Newsletter in 1980. Collectors interest was not ultimately sufficient to sustain the publication, and Schimmel wrapped up the Newsletter in 1984, with the last two issues serving as an index to the series. Wikipedia notes that states began moving from paper stamps to debit cards in the late 1990s, and today this is a non-issue. Newman Portal acknowledges Michael Wehner for his assistance with this title.Link to Food Stamp Change Newsletter on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/618069Image: Inaugural cover of the Food Stamp Change Newsletter