Yes, once there were

CREDIT COINS

A little-known 19th-century payment system that used metal tokens paved the way for today’s credit cards, tap-to-pay and cryptocurrency, according to our friends at Wirecutter, a Times Company site that reviews products.

The tokens, called charge coins or credit coins, were embossed with an account number and given out by merchants. A customer presented the coin to a merchant, who charged the purchase to the associated account. Some coins had a specific limit.

A department store in Los Angeles in 1941. Associated Press

The first were issued after the Civil War, and they grew increasingly popular until charge plates — metal rectangles with raised letters — took over around the Great Depression. Those gave way in the 1950s to the modern credit card.

Collectors are into all of them. But coins, which are rarely worth more than $100, have the least competition. A founder of the American Credit Card

Collectors Society estimates that probably no more than 1,000 people worldwide collect them.

You do not have to be an expert credit card or rare coin collector to collect all you need to teach your children to be very good readers. All you have to do is look at the information below about ALPHA-PHONICS one of the most widely used phonics reading instruction programs by Homeschoolers to teach children to read, easily, quickly and economically. Just look at he information here: