When the Italian small-change coins spiccioli began to vanish in 1965, some said the lightweight aluminum pieces were being collected by the Japanese for cheap watch cases. Others thought the coins were disappearing into cloth-covered buttons or, perhaps, simply blowing away.
In fact, the disappearance of spiccioli began in 1964 when, faced by soaring double-digit inflation, the Italian government ceased minting the silver 500-lira piece, which had become more valuable as metal than as money. Italians were expected to make change with smaller aluminum coins worth 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 lire. But the national supply of small change was swiftly devoured by coin-operated vending machines, by tourists going home with pocketfuls of nearly worthless foreign coins, and by work stoppages at the Italian mint.
As a result, getting change while shopping became a major problem. The post office tried to solve it by giving out stamps worth a few centesimi (100 to the lira), but a huge envelope was needed to accommodate the numerous stamps required even for local delivery. Butchers passed out eggs as a fragile alternative to coins. News vendors, given 100-lira pieces for 90-lira newspapers, made change with candy valued at 10 lire, and many storekeepers dealt out such differences in the form of nougat and licorice.
The use of sweets as coinage led Senator Augusto Premoli to sponsor legislation that would have the Italian mint print candy wrappers in the denominations of the missing coins. His bill was voted down, but many banks went ahead on their own, printing a kind of mini-check in the amount of the vanished lira pieces. Actually worthless bits of paper, these were accepted by merchants and have since become collectors' items, trading for far more than their minuscule face value.
Not until 1976 did the tide begin to turn. Then, a new 200-lira coin was introduced, followed in 1978 by a nonsilver 500-lira piece. With this infusion of new coins, the famine of small change quickly turned into an embarrassment of small-denomination riches.
