The Value of a Single Phone Call
Italy in the 1970s. Small change disappeared from circulation, and public telephone tokens began to be used as change.
In 1970s Italy, things other than coins began to appear in the change given at shops. Candies. Small bank cheques. And public telephone tokens.
Small Change Vanished
The background to this was inflation. After the oil crisis and a wave of wage increases, prices and wages continued to push each other up. Studies cite a level of around twenty percent per year.
The mechanism that linked wages to prices—the *scala mobile*—is said to have worked to entrench this situation. However, the causality is debated and has not been definitively established.
What is certain is that small-denomination coins withdrew from circulation. The small change issued by the state became insufficient.
Paper Printed by Banks
Banks were the first to fill the gap. They printed small-denomination cheques—*miniassegni*—for tens or hundreds of lire, which circulated as change. This occurred from around 1975 to 1978.
These were, in effect, private banknotes. People received their change for a coffee in the form of small pieces of paper with a bank's name printed on them.
Telephone Coins
Another substitute was the *gettone*. This was a grooved brass token for use in public telephones.
It became accepted as change. The reason was simple: it had a value that everyone knew—the price of a single phone call.
It was not established by the state. Nor was it legal tender. Yet it circulated. Because everyone believed that others would accept it.
Where the Definition of Money Was Tested
What happened here touches upon the very definition of money.
Money is that which everyone believes will be accepted—the *gettone* proved this definition in daily life. The telephone coin filled the void left by the scarcity of the state's small change.
However, this does not mean that the role of the state is unnecessary. The *gettone* was accepted because its issuer, the telephone company, kept its value constant. Something whose value is guaranteed by no one cannot serve as change.
Only something qualified to be a substitute can stand in as one. Italy in the 1970s demonstrated this over several years.
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Everything in these pieces comes from the material itself.