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General Philatelic/Identify This? : Military Script??

 

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John Macco
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Astrophilatelist- Space Cover Collector

30 Oct 2015
05:05:56pm
I was wondering if anybody can tell me about the following items. I cannot recall how I came upon these but any information as to what it is and possible value would be appreciated.
Image Not Found

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Guthrum
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30 Oct 2015
05:21:48pm
re: Military Script??

Try this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_British_Armed_Forces


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John Macco
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Astrophilatelist- Space Cover Collector

30 Oct 2015
08:08:29pm
re: Military Script??

Ian- Thanks for reference. Any idea of value?

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Guthrum
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31 Oct 2015
05:53:05am
re: Military Script??

Try this link:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/british-armed-forces-notes



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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

31 Oct 2015
01:09:10pm
re: Military Script??

" ... I was wondering if anybody can tell me about the following items. ..."


I can't say much about UK Military Script, but similar US items were used when I first went to Japan in the early 1960s. All service men were paid in script. Also upon arrival we had to declare how much currency we had in greenbacks and could only take ashore script that we had converted from US currency. Then to legally carry Yen currency we had to convert some script at a bank or legal exchange outlet at the official rate which hovered around 359Â¥ to the dollar.
Being caught ashore with either Yen in excess of what had been legally exchanged or Script in excess of what had been declared in greenbacks could bring charges of illegal currency manipulation..
The thing I learned very quickly was that a crisp $20 bill could be converted in certain places at 400Â¥ to the dollar and a $100 bill close to 500Â¥ to the dollar.
They used US script in Vietnam as well although I don't recall the exchange rate as sharply.
At home I have an envelope which, along with examples of US Military script I kept left over currency from several dozen countries from that era.Image Not Found

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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
TuskenRaider
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31 Oct 2015
03:21:39pm
re: Military Script??

Hi cdj1122;

A few years ago I sold a Viet Nam vet some fractional currency in the form of notes. He was using to make a shadow box gift for his grandkids.

The paper notes were in various denominations to replace coins which were not allowed to be carried in Nam. If you are well hidden while a Viet Cong squad is nearby and your coins rattled, it would give away your position and get your whole company killed.

Just another nightmare from our dark past....
TuskenRaider

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John Macco
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Astrophilatelist- Space Cover Collector

23 Nov 2019
06:20:21am
re: Military Script??

I will send to the first email with mailing address free of charge the above 2 items. email me directly.

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ikeyPikey
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23 Nov 2019
07:59:24am
re: Military Script??

During the Vietnam War, the rule was that you could only spend US military scrip on base.

This was to stop you from spending the stuff off-base on, shall we say, the things young men will buy for cash when they are off-base.

But they also wanted to defeat the on-base drug dealers, gambling enablers, etc.

The countermeasure against off-base spending was the surprise swap-out. One night, the MPs would close the gates (all of the gates, everywhere), and GIs could exchange yesterday's money for tamara's money. Off-base civilians could not.

The companion countermeasure was that you could only change a limited amount. Thus, the on-base drug dealers, et al, might get caught with their pants down, and whatever scrip they were holding would turn to dust.

Of course, the stuff got spent off-base, in the civilian economy, anyway.

After all, money's money, and a medium of exchange is just that.

But the off-base crowd did not want to get caught holding the stuff during a surprise swap-out (for a 100% loss), so they split the difference.

Any enterprising GI could go off-base, and buy U$D 500 in scrip for U$D 250 in folding green pictures of dead presidents.

That same GI would then return to the base post office, where he could buy a U$D 500 postal money order with scrip, and then mail that postal money order to a cooperating party back in the world.

That person would cash the postal money order, take a small cut (if it was not a family member), and mail back the rest of the cash.

In case you have not been paying attention, the enterprising GI has turned U$D 250 into U$D 500.

Fifties were the preferred compromise between hundreds (less easily spent) and twenties (less easily concealed).

Greeting cards were the preferred conveyance, as they provided the thinnest of cover stories in the event of discovery, as well as the stiffness to hide the fifties.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey (whose go-to cover story is that he only read about this in the NYTimes, which has the advantage of being entirely credible)

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Harvey
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!

24 Nov 2019
05:45:29pm
re: Military Script??

I'm a bit of a history addict, most stamp collectors are. I never heard about this aspect of the Vietnam War. I'm a Canadian and at the time I had some US friends fighting in Vietnam and a few of my Canadian friends went over as well - I could never find out why. Was the Canadian dollar used over there at all, or was it immediately converted to US currency? Just curious if any of the US vets ran into many Canadians over there.

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""We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years." George Carlin"
Bobstamp
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24 Nov 2019
11:49:56pm
re: Military Script??

My Marine Corps battalion operated in the I Corps Tactical Zone, from Quang Ngai Province to the DMZ. Our combat operations were confined to Quang Ngai Province and what was then Quang Tin Province. Here's a current outline map of Vietnam:

Image Not Found

The province shown in red is Quang Nam Province, the southern half of which includes the former Quang Tin Province. The province shown in blue is Quang Ngai Province, where I was wounded. At no time during the First Indochina War (1946-1954) or during the Vietnam War was Quang Ngai Province "pacified" — the communists controlled virtually every aspect of life in the province. When my company was ambushed — my platoon was "on point" — we weren't even aware that the communists were waiting for us in a well-supplied, well-armed "fortress" carved out of a small hill. My battalion lost 98 Marines that day.

Quang Ngai and Quang Tin provinces were largely rural. I "visited" only one city, Tam Ky in Quang Tin Province, when my company was being moved by truck to an area where VC were thought to be operating. In short, I never went anywhere in Vietnam where I could have spent money, but I never saw any money, not military scrip, not Vietnamese coins or currency. Perhaps there would eventually been a pay parade had I not my almost-million-dollar wound not occurred, but my back-pay didn't catch up with me until I'd been hospitalized for several weeks in San Diego. But I was familiar with military scrip.

For two years before my tour of duty with the Marines, I was stationed at the U.S. Navy Hospital at Yokosuka, Japan, which had been the main Japanese naval base. I never saw any U.S. currency during that time; our pay was all in MPCs. Here's an example that I have in the scrapbook I kept at that time:

Image Not Found

Near the end of my second year in Japan, I learned from the owner of a Japanese camera store that I frequented that new MPCs were going to be issued, and he was right: the next day the naval base was shut down and we had to turn in all of our MPCs and be issued with new ones.

To answer Harvey's questions about Canadians in Vietnam, I can only say that yes, definitely, there were Canadians there, some 10,000 of them by the end of the war. I didn't encounter any, but there was a German in my battalion: he'd overstayed his welcome in New York City and had been drafted. At least that's how I remember it.

When I lived in Prince George in central British Columbia, I tried to start a Vietnam Veterans group. I was the only American. I had hoped that the group could become a sort of VFW for Vietnam Vets, but it didn't work out well. While I felt that I had lost my country in Vietnam, the other guys mostly had personal grudges against the U.S. and the U.S. military, and for good reason.

One member of the group suffered from severe PTSD. He had fractured both ankles jumping from a helicopter; he was hospitalized only long enough to be able to send him home. He received no compensation, and was a very angry man. In fact, my understanding is that the U.S. has not maintained any records of Canadian Vietnam vets, and they were never eligible for disability compensation. Another member of the group suffered serious paranoia; he believed that the CIA was constantly watching him because of secrets that he knew.

This past Remembrance Day was interesting. For the first time since 1969, when my wife and I emigrated to Canada, a Vietnam veteran was allowed to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. At least I don't remember that ever happening before. And one of the speakers included Vietnam veterans in his remarks about veterans of WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. That felt good.

Bob


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John Macco
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Astrophilatelist- Space Cover Collector

25 Nov 2019
08:18:39am
re: Military Script??

claimed

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

25 Nov 2019
07:40:38pm
re: Military Script??

" ....I'm a bit of a history addict, most stamp collectors are. I never heard about this aspect of the Vietnam War. ...."

Not just the Vietnam Unpleasantness.
We used script in Japan in the late fifties and early sixties, and in fact, I have an example of script used during WW II from the "Allied Military Horde"

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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
        

 

Author/Postings
Members Picture
John Macco

Astrophilatelist- Space Cover Collector
30 Oct 2015
05:05:56pm

I was wondering if anybody can tell me about the following items. I cannot recall how I came upon these but any information as to what it is and possible value would be appreciated.
Image Not Found

Like
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this post
Members Picture
Guthrum

30 Oct 2015
05:21:48pm

re: Military Script??

Try this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_British_Armed_Forces


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John Macco

Astrophilatelist- Space Cover Collector
30 Oct 2015
08:08:29pm

re: Military Script??

Ian- Thanks for reference. Any idea of value?

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this post
Members Picture
Guthrum

31 Oct 2015
05:53:05am

re: Military Script??

Try this link:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/british-armed-forces-notes



Like
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this post

Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
31 Oct 2015
01:09:10pm

re: Military Script??

" ... I was wondering if anybody can tell me about the following items. ..."


I can't say much about UK Military Script, but similar US items were used when I first went to Japan in the early 1960s. All service men were paid in script. Also upon arrival we had to declare how much currency we had in greenbacks and could only take ashore script that we had converted from US currency. Then to legally carry Yen currency we had to convert some script at a bank or legal exchange outlet at the official rate which hovered around 359Â¥ to the dollar.
Being caught ashore with either Yen in excess of what had been legally exchanged or Script in excess of what had been declared in greenbacks could bring charges of illegal currency manipulation..
The thing I learned very quickly was that a crisp $20 bill could be converted in certain places at 400Â¥ to the dollar and a $100 bill close to 500Â¥ to the dollar.
They used US script in Vietnam as well although I don't recall the exchange rate as sharply.
At home I have an envelope which, along with examples of US Military script I kept left over currency from several dozen countries from that era.Image Not Found

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this post

".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
Members Picture
TuskenRaider

31 Oct 2015
03:21:39pm

re: Military Script??

Hi cdj1122;

A few years ago I sold a Viet Nam vet some fractional currency in the form of notes. He was using to make a shadow box gift for his grandkids.

The paper notes were in various denominations to replace coins which were not allowed to be carried in Nam. If you are well hidden while a Viet Cong squad is nearby and your coins rattled, it would give away your position and get your whole company killed.

Just another nightmare from our dark past....
TuskenRaider

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www.webstore.com/sto ...
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John Macco

Astrophilatelist- Space Cover Collector
23 Nov 2019
06:20:21am

re: Military Script??

I will send to the first email with mailing address free of charge the above 2 items. email me directly.

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ikeyPikey

23 Nov 2019
07:59:24am

re: Military Script??

During the Vietnam War, the rule was that you could only spend US military scrip on base.

This was to stop you from spending the stuff off-base on, shall we say, the things young men will buy for cash when they are off-base.

But they also wanted to defeat the on-base drug dealers, gambling enablers, etc.

The countermeasure against off-base spending was the surprise swap-out. One night, the MPs would close the gates (all of the gates, everywhere), and GIs could exchange yesterday's money for tamara's money. Off-base civilians could not.

The companion countermeasure was that you could only change a limited amount. Thus, the on-base drug dealers, et al, might get caught with their pants down, and whatever scrip they were holding would turn to dust.

Of course, the stuff got spent off-base, in the civilian economy, anyway.

After all, money's money, and a medium of exchange is just that.

But the off-base crowd did not want to get caught holding the stuff during a surprise swap-out (for a 100% loss), so they split the difference.

Any enterprising GI could go off-base, and buy U$D 500 in scrip for U$D 250 in folding green pictures of dead presidents.

That same GI would then return to the base post office, where he could buy a U$D 500 postal money order with scrip, and then mail that postal money order to a cooperating party back in the world.

That person would cash the postal money order, take a small cut (if it was not a family member), and mail back the rest of the cash.

In case you have not been paying attention, the enterprising GI has turned U$D 250 into U$D 500.

Fifties were the preferred compromise between hundreds (less easily spent) and twenties (less easily concealed).

Greeting cards were the preferred conveyance, as they provided the thinnest of cover stories in the event of discovery, as well as the stiffness to hide the fifties.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey (whose go-to cover story is that he only read about this in the NYTimes, which has the advantage of being entirely credible)

Like 
5 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.

"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."

This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
24 Nov 2019
05:45:29pm

re: Military Script??

I'm a bit of a history addict, most stamp collectors are. I never heard about this aspect of the Vietnam War. I'm a Canadian and at the time I had some US friends fighting in Vietnam and a few of my Canadian friends went over as well - I could never find out why. Was the Canadian dollar used over there at all, or was it immediately converted to US currency? Just curious if any of the US vets ran into many Canadians over there.

Like
Login to Like
this post

""We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years." George Carlin"
Members Picture
Bobstamp

24 Nov 2019
11:49:56pm

re: Military Script??

My Marine Corps battalion operated in the I Corps Tactical Zone, from Quang Ngai Province to the DMZ. Our combat operations were confined to Quang Ngai Province and what was then Quang Tin Province. Here's a current outline map of Vietnam:

Image Not Found

The province shown in red is Quang Nam Province, the southern half of which includes the former Quang Tin Province. The province shown in blue is Quang Ngai Province, where I was wounded. At no time during the First Indochina War (1946-1954) or during the Vietnam War was Quang Ngai Province "pacified" — the communists controlled virtually every aspect of life in the province. When my company was ambushed — my platoon was "on point" — we weren't even aware that the communists were waiting for us in a well-supplied, well-armed "fortress" carved out of a small hill. My battalion lost 98 Marines that day.

Quang Ngai and Quang Tin provinces were largely rural. I "visited" only one city, Tam Ky in Quang Tin Province, when my company was being moved by truck to an area where VC were thought to be operating. In short, I never went anywhere in Vietnam where I could have spent money, but I never saw any money, not military scrip, not Vietnamese coins or currency. Perhaps there would eventually been a pay parade had I not my almost-million-dollar wound not occurred, but my back-pay didn't catch up with me until I'd been hospitalized for several weeks in San Diego. But I was familiar with military scrip.

For two years before my tour of duty with the Marines, I was stationed at the U.S. Navy Hospital at Yokosuka, Japan, which had been the main Japanese naval base. I never saw any U.S. currency during that time; our pay was all in MPCs. Here's an example that I have in the scrapbook I kept at that time:

Image Not Found

Near the end of my second year in Japan, I learned from the owner of a Japanese camera store that I frequented that new MPCs were going to be issued, and he was right: the next day the naval base was shut down and we had to turn in all of our MPCs and be issued with new ones.

To answer Harvey's questions about Canadians in Vietnam, I can only say that yes, definitely, there were Canadians there, some 10,000 of them by the end of the war. I didn't encounter any, but there was a German in my battalion: he'd overstayed his welcome in New York City and had been drafted. At least that's how I remember it.

When I lived in Prince George in central British Columbia, I tried to start a Vietnam Veterans group. I was the only American. I had hoped that the group could become a sort of VFW for Vietnam Vets, but it didn't work out well. While I felt that I had lost my country in Vietnam, the other guys mostly had personal grudges against the U.S. and the U.S. military, and for good reason.

One member of the group suffered from severe PTSD. He had fractured both ankles jumping from a helicopter; he was hospitalized only long enough to be able to send him home. He received no compensation, and was a very angry man. In fact, my understanding is that the U.S. has not maintained any records of Canadian Vietnam vets, and they were never eligible for disability compensation. Another member of the group suffered serious paranoia; he believed that the CIA was constantly watching him because of secrets that he knew.

This past Remembrance Day was interesting. For the first time since 1969, when my wife and I emigrated to Canada, a Vietnam veteran was allowed to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. At least I don't remember that ever happening before. And one of the speakers included Vietnam veterans in his remarks about veterans of WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. That felt good.

Bob


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John Macco

Astrophilatelist- Space Cover Collector
25 Nov 2019
08:18:39am

re: Military Script??

claimed

Like
Login to Like
this post

Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
25 Nov 2019
07:40:38pm

re: Military Script??

" ....I'm a bit of a history addict, most stamp collectors are. I never heard about this aspect of the Vietnam War. ...."

Not just the Vietnam Unpleasantness.
We used script in Japan in the late fifties and early sixties, and in fact, I have an example of script used during WW II from the "Allied Military Horde"

Like
Login to Like
this post

".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
        

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