When the United States entered World War II, the whole nation became committed to the war effort. "Victory gardens" and "Rosie the Riveter" were all the rage. Scrap drives and blackouts were part of life on the homefront.
However, rationing was the largest contributor to the war effort, by evenly distributing goods and reining in prices. A nation already used to doing without during the Great Depression continued to do so, despite a dramatic increase in buying power.
Consumer commodities were scarcely available from beef, butter, coffee and sugar to gasoline, shoes, tires and typewriters.
The food was needed for the boys on the front. The rubber, metal and gasoline were used in military machinery as U.S. factories were retrofitted to fill the needs of the military, and imports, including rubber, slowed to a trickle.
To reign in overeager shoppers, there had to be a mechanism with which to facilitate the rationing. Enter ration stamps, coupons, tokens, certificates and checks.
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OSBORNE REGISTER CO., of Cincinnati, Ohio, made 900 million blue tokens. There are 24 letter combinations on the blue tokens.
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From 1942 to 1945, each family received ration books of coupons and stamps for each family member to procure goods. Ration stamps and tokens served a role as important as currency, and losing a ration book caused problems.
Congress authorized rationing with the act of June 28, 1940 (which was amended by the Act of May 31, 1941) and later with the Second War Powers Act of 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the authority, through executive orders, over the War Food Administration and the War Production Board. The Office of Price Administration received its authority from these two agencies.
When an item reached a critical supply level, the WFA or the WPB directed the OPA to administer rationing of those products. The WFA and WPB determined what items would be rationed, where the rationing would occur and when it would begin.
You want what?
Tires were the first item to be rationed, in January 1942. Quickly following were passenger automobiles, typewriters, sugar, gasoline, bicycles, footwear, fuel oil, coffee, stoves, shoes, meat, lard, shortening and oils, cheese, butter, margarine, processed foods (canned, bottled and frozen), dried fruits, canned milk, firewood and coal, jams, jellies and fruit butter, by November 1943.
Many different tiers of rationing went into effect. Certain items, like sugar, were distributed evenly based on the number of people in a household. Other items, like gasoline or fuel oil, were passed out on an as-needed basis. Restaurant owners and other merchants were accorded more availability, but many had to collect ration coupons to restock their supplies.
Meats and processed foods were assessed various point values, and households, depending on their size, would get a certain number of coupons worth 10 points. The flexibility allowed consumer choice, but meant making change for the coupons. One-point tokens (each bearing a two-letter combination) served to solve this problem and decrease the paperwork load of merchants and ration boards.
In exchange for the coupons from the merchants, ration boards delivered certificates to them to procure more products.
"The work of exchanging coupons for certificates was then being handled by some 5,500 local ration boards for the most part manned by volunteer workers. The work was largely of an accounting nature and was in addition to their primary function, the issuance of the ration program," Joseph A. Lowande writes in U.S. Ration Currency & Tokens 1942-1945.
Red and blue tokens
The OPA's red ration tokens ran in a series of 30 two-letter combinations and could be used to purchase meats, fats, fish and cheese. The blue token series consisted of 24 two-letter combinations and could be used for purchasing processed foods. The letters are thought to have been an anti-counterfeiting measure as well as a way to ensure accountability in shipment. The letters identified the die used.
The OPA tokens were stamped, fiber discs, red or blue in color. Both colors bore the same design: OPA BLUE POINT or OPA RED POINT around the rim, with a star between each word and a large numeral 1 flanked by two small letters in the center. All of the lettering was incuse, and the 1 is in outline form to give it a raised appearance, but it is actually flat.
Red tokens were more important and more widely circulated, according to Elmer Oehlke, in the August to September 2002 Timber Lines, the newsletter of the Dedicated Wooden Money Collectors.
Both the red and blue tokens first appeared on Feb. 27, 1944. The red tokens used the following letter combinations: HC, HT, MM, MV, TH, TY, UC, UH, UT, UV, UX, UY, VC, VH, VT, VU, VX, VY, XC, XH, XT, XU, XV, XY, YC, YH, YT, YU, YV, YX. The MV series is called the key, according to Oehlke.
There are 24 blue token combinations: CC, CH, CT, CV, CX, HH, HU, HV, HX, HY, TC, TT, TU, TV, TX, WC, WH, WT, WU, WW, UU, VV, XX, AND YY. The WC series is key, Oehkle writes.
Originally, government officials wanted tokens 21 millimeters in diameter but the size dropped to 16 millimeters, still ensuring the tokens couldn't jam pay telephones or vending machines.
50 million a day, unbreakable
Two aspects of the token production are impressive. The government allowed six months for their production, meaning 50 million tokens were to be churbed out daily. Most manufacturers averaged only 1.5 million per day, according to Lowande.
But M.P. Pfeil, a Cincinnati engineer, president of Dayton Acme Co., a research and engineering company, thought it was possible. He also controlled the Osborne Register Co., a private mint in Cincinnati.
Pfeil and W.W. Osborne traveled to Washington in the summer of 1943 to meet with OPA officials and determine their needs. But, according to Lowande's book, OPA officials were uncertain as to whether the program could be pulled off.
The other awing aspect is the token specifications: They had to be uniform in color, nonfading, iridescent, chemically inert, non-toxic, non-poisonous, unbreakable, unbending, incombustible, and resistant to water and perspiration.
Lead-antimony and glass were considered as materials to use, but glass would break, and the metal alloy would smudge ladies' gloves, Lowande writes. Plastics were increasingly being used for the war, and cardboard and paper wore out too fast.
Of more than 100 manufacturers invited to bid on material to be used for the tokens; only three responded and two offered bids deemed too expensive. Pfeil's bid for vulcanized fiber tokens - a form of processed wood pulp - was accepted.
Osborne Register Co. had to produce 2 billion tokens by Feb. 27, 1943, an order that would fill 57 standard-size freight cars. Osborne ordered new presses and counting machines while advertising for new hires. Osborne was able to hire 1,200 workers to fill three shifts, which ran seven days a week and succeeded in producing the necessary 50 million tokens per day.
Tokens were produced for $1.19 per thousand. In all, 2 billion tokens were issued with 1.1 billion red and 900 million blue.
According to Lowande, the tokens were packed 250 per box, 20 boxes to a carton. They were then shipped to more than 15,000 banks for ultimate delivery to 450,000 retailers.
"Elaborate precautions were taken to prevent theft of the tokens, because OPA's whole system would be hamstrung until new dies and tokens could be prepared. Each machine had a calculator, reels were weighed before being fed into the machines, and after, tokens and scrap had to be equal to that weight. A score of guards were scattered through the plant. They rode the trucks that brought the fiber rolls from the rail yards to the warehouse. Signs were posted in the plant that illegal possession of tokens would bring a $10,000 fine and imprisonment for at least a year, or both," Lowande writes.
Gone, but not forgotten
The blue token was discontinued Oct. 1, 1944; by that time, all processed food was 10 points and all coupons were 10 points. By December 1944 all stamps were invalidated, and all red tokens were discontinued.
While many tokens have been lost, a small segment of collectors specialize in their study. A leading organization is the Society of Ration Token Collectors. For more information about the SRTC, contact Thomas B. Smith, secretary, at 738 Cutlip Road, Jackson, OH 45640 or e-mail him at tomsue@zoomnet.net. Contact Donald J. Kolkman, SRTC president at 1 Oakwood Court, Greenville, SC 29607 or e-mail him at DKolkman@AOL.com.
