25 Cents

The Clunies Ross family ruled the Cocos (Keeling) Islands as a private fiefdom from the early nineteenth century until Australian annexation in 1978, and their token coinage was a deliberate instrument of economic control. Workers on the copra plantation were paid in these plastic tokens rather than sterling, binding them to the company store and preventing any outflow of real currency from the islands. The system was feudal in every practical sense.

Plastic ivory was chosen specifically because it could not be mistaken for any government-issued currency and was essentially worthless outside the atoll.