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Collected Item: “A Nationwide Coin Shortage”

Give your story a title.

A Nationwide Coin Shortage

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Photograph

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

With businesses dealing with physical money closing down, people avoiding handling hard currency out of fear of contracting COVID-19, and the US Mint experiencing significant difficulties in coin production in the spring of 2020, the US supply of circulating coins took a hit, prompting signs like this one at a west Wichita, Kansas, grocery store to become commonplace. Appearing in both English and Spanish, this image reflects the growing importance of cashless forms of payment and donations as ways of navigating this economic side effect of COVID-19.

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

Aaron Peterka

Give this story a date.

2020-07-16
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