Travellers checks – history and applications
Short story about travelers checks and their more or less unorthodox applications. I will not translate the whole story into English as the subject is well covered by English language resources available from internet so no point in duplicating this information here.
However it is worth noting that there was a special kind of travelers checks circulating in closed economies. They were intended not as a safe way to carry travel money but as a way of controlling currency flows between closed and open economies. Unlike typical American Express travelers checks which could be negotiated anywhere and without time limit, those special checks were payable only in designated country or countries and their validity was also limited. Initially such checks appeared in 1930-ies in those countries which introduced currency controls (Germany for example). Denominated in controlled currency (in this example in Reichsmarks) were sold abroad at a discount to official rate in order to promote tourism and inflow of hard currency into cash starved economy. This idea was replicated and further developed in so-called “socialist” countries after 1945 where import of export of local currencies was either strictly controlled or even forbidden. So for example Polish tourist going to Soviet Union or East Germany was not getting local cash but special purpose travelers checks in ruble’s cash-able only in USSR or GDR. Below you will find small gallery of few checks I have in my collection: 1917/19 American Express classic T-Checks and “socialist” checks issued in Poland and Hungary.
$20 Amex 1917 (specimen)
$200 Amex 1919
OTP T-Check
NBP T-Check