Mining Company Scrip, Compañía de Salitres de Antofagasta (Saltpeter Company of Antofagasta)

These ebonite (vulcanized plastic) tokens are an early 20th century example of company scrip—money that was not legal tender, and used by private companies to pay their employees. This practice often resulted in unfair working conditions, with laborers forced to buy overpriced company goods, and since scrip had no value outside of the company's stores, leaving was difficult for workers as well.

Bearing the CSA monogram for Compañía de Salitres de Antofagasta, these tokens are a remnant of that inflammatory system and the industry that redrew the boarders of South America. This collection contains a green and yellow two peso token and a blue and red one peso token.

Compañía de Salitres de Antofagasta

Life in the nitrate fields of Chile's Atacama Desert revolved around the company one worked for. The company provided employment, housing, supplies, and access to the most basic services. Dependence extended right down to the money in a worker’s pocket. Rather than paying a common wage, Compañía de Salitres de Antofagasta issued their own tokens, known as fichas, which workers could then funnel back into company-run stores.

These examples of company scrip were issued by Compañía de Salitres de Antofagasta, a Chilean-British company extracting saltpeter from what was then Bolivian territory. Saltpeter was enormously valuable in the 19th century as a key ingredient in fertilizer and explosives, and the Atacama Desert contained some of the richest deposits in the world.

However, that wealth put the company at the center of an international crisis. In 1879, disputes over a Bolivian tax on the nitrate operations escalated when Bolivia attempted to seize the company’s property. Meanwhile, Chilean forces occupied Antofagasta, instigating the War of the Pacific between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. Chile’s victory and subsequent repossession of the vast nitrate-rich territories left Bolivia without a Pacific coastline.

The use of fichas persisted until Chile prohibited payment in company scrip in 1924.

Each coin comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.