From matches to Argentine candies: complementary coins when there is inflation

Inflation in Argentina gallops back, with a 3.3% only in May and a total of 21.5% since January 2021, 48.8% considering the last 12 months. Circulating currency is worth less and less. The peso, the basic unit of the local currency, is equivalent to less than one cent of a dollar, about half a cent of a euro. The government for its part refuses to admit the situation, and does not print money of higher value: the largest banknote printed continues to be the one thousand pesos which, at the real exchange rate, is worth just over 5 euros. Enough to give an idea of ​​the amount of money with which a citizen must circulate in order to make their purchases in cash. The Arcor group, the largest in the South American country, has printed on the packages of the “Mini” candies the phrase: “Ideal for giving change”. There has been no lack of controversy and relaunches on Twitter, but one thing is certain: if we continue like this, the risk could be that the candies are worth more than the pesos themselves. When the coin has practically no value and the amount of change in circulation struggles to cover the needs, a candy can be the solution. What is happening in Argentina, provocative advertising stunts aside, is nothing new, and those who have memories of Italy in the sixties and seventies find it easy to understand. In situations of high inflation, alternative ways are sought to anchor the currency to something real, or to make up for, more trivially, a lack of circulating money. A first situation of this kind occurred in Italy in the mid-1960s. From 1955 onwards there was a gradual decrease in monetary production, a consequence of the decreasing availability of labor and the reduction in working hours, together with an increase in needs. Some companies decided to intervene, such as the Jolanda di Savoia sugar factory in Ferrara, by coining aluminum tokens of a value equivalent to the lire that could be used in their shop.In the seventies, with galloping inflation, the situation became even more problematic. and so it became customary to use fixed-value consumer goods in place of coins. Candies, chocolates, matchboxes were given and accepted as change. Then it was also the turn of the stamps, chosen by Autostrade Spa to give the rest of the toll at the toll booth. Associations and supermarkets instead printed coupons to use as currency at the point of sale. Between ’77 and ’78 it was the banks themselves that ran for cover, issuing mini checks, a complementary currency to make up for the shortage of currency. Then the Mint adjusted production again, the first 200 lire were issued (previously as a denomination they did not exist) and the complementary forms of currency disappeared. Or rather: they remained, a little nostalgic and under the radar, in the telephone tokens accepted everywhere as an alternative to the 200 lire, in the Goleador candies that still today we ask or accept at the bar instead of the 10 cents change.