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10 Units Sing Sing Prison
| Issuer | Sing Sing Prison |
|---|---|
| Year | 1914-1916 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Ten "Do good Make good" MWL SING SING PRISON |
| Reverse description | Uniface; reverse entirely unprinted, showing plain cream-toned paper stock with no text, vignette, or underprint. |
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| Comments |
Sing Sing Prison, located in Ossining, New York, operated an internal scrip system in the 1910s that allowed inmates to conduct limited transactions within the facility — a practice that sat in a legal grey area under New York State law at the time. These notes were not issued by any banking authority and had no value outside the prison walls.
The issuing period coincides with the administration of Warden Thomas Mott Osborne, whose controversial reform program briefly gave inmates a degree of structured self-governance through the Mutual Welfare League. The scrip was part of that experiment.