New Hampshire Merchant Scrip, Along with a Brief History of Its Use and Biographical Sketches of the Merchants. By Kevin G. Lafond. Foreword by Q. David Bowers.(Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall Publisher, 2018. Pp. XVI, 471. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $89.50 cloth).

Scrip and other unofficial currencies are ephemeral in the dual sense that they circulate for relatively brief periods of time and the documentation surrounding their use soondisappears. In view of the challenges this poses to researching their history, we should welcome Kevin G. Lafond's meticulously written and sumptuously illustrated volume on NewHampshire merchant scrip.

A student and collector of this medium for over twenty-five years, Lafond has previously published chunks of his research, including a sketch of the Portsmouth, N.H. merchantJohn Davenport, a longer monograph on the merchant scrip of that city, as well as a number of smaller articles in the New Hampshire Numismatic Association's newsletter, TheNonagon.

In New Hampshire Merchant Scrip, Lafond brings together his previous work, and much more, to produce a fine-grained study of New Hampshire issues and the merchantsresponsible for them. Though its title references "Merchant Scrip" as a general topic, the actual focus of this book is overwhelmingly the Civil War era "shinplasters" thatappeared in New Hampshire, and indeed across the country, in response to the prevailing shortage of small change. Unlike other state-specific works of this genre, this volume isboth narrower in focus yet more ambitious in terms of the historical depth it seeks to achieve.

After providing brief accounts of the major economic and financial crises that have given rise to the use of scrip (his account of the emergence of Civil War scrip isparticularly original with respect to New Hampshire), Lafond follows with useful biographical information about the engravers, lithographers, and printers of the state's issues,some of whom are quite obscure. As a rule these outfits were not specialists in banknote production, but undertook scrip issues as sidelines to their other commercialbusiness.

The meat of the book consists of a compilation of scrip issues accompanied by brief, yet detailed accounts of the merchants-their operations and lives-who used the scrip. Tocall this book a mere catalog would be greatly misleading, though it does provide a reference scheme and attempts to give rarity ratings and note counts for each issue. Even forthe smallest town and issue, Lafond's research appears exhaustive, as if he had ransacked every local historical society in search of any information pertinent to their localmerchants. Instead of relegating this historical detail to introductions or appendices, as some catalogs do, Lafond instead integrates them into the text with a simple andintuitive framework. Sometimes, his meticulous footnotes alone contain more detail than the corresponding text, and represent delightful side-paths for the careful reader tofollow.

Proceeding alphabetically by town name (from Acworth to Wolfeboro), Lafond lists merchants within each locale alphabetically in turn. Spread across seventy-eight towns, NewHampshire scrip issuers were in particular concentrated in the three larger cities: Manchester (16), Concord (23), and Portsmouth (26). The result is a classification schemeeasily adaptable to new scrip discoveries as they may occur in the future.

While most of these merchants' histories occupy no more than a page or two of text (excluding images), some-like those of John Davenport (Portsmouth) or Jones & Mendum(also Portsmouth)-are particularly substantial accounts. In most all cases, though, Lafond has managed to bring together period portraits and other photographs to serve ascounterpoints to the lavish color images of the scrip notes themselves. Quite apart from its contents, this is a handsome volume whose quality of production would please the mostardent bibliophile.

At once a catalog of scrip and a compendium of commercial history at the most granular level, this volume hits a sweet spot between the schematic list making typical ofcatalogs and the rich details typical of local histories. As such, this valuable book should prove a resource to numismatists, professional historians, and general readers alikefor a long time to come.

New Hampshire Merchant Scrip is available for purchase from the author, Kevin Lafond, P.O. Box 4724, Portsmouth, NH 03802-4724, for $89.50 plus $10.00 shipping (Makechecks payable to Kevin Lafond). Inquiries to: kglafond@comcast.net .