In Chile, as in many other parts of the world, workers in different economic sectors were paid during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with tokens or privately issued money. These pieces were not official currency, but they functioned as a means of payment within particular companies or establishments.

The best known are the saltpetre tokens, used to pay workers in nitrate works both before and after the War of the Pacific. These tokens were usually made of ebonite, a hard and durable material, although there were also issues in bronze, aluminium and even more fragile materials such as cardboard or leather. Among the many companies that used this system, the one that issued the largest number of tokens was the Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarriles de Antofagasta.

Although saltpetre tokens are the best known, this form of private money was far more widespread. There were also mining tokens, common in copper extraction sites such as Collahuasi, and in coal mining, such as those issued by the Compañía Carbonífera Schwager in Lota. The system was also used on estates and dairy farms, such as Hacienda Federico Errázuriz and Lechería San Vicente, as well as in other productive sectors, including the railway industry and whaling, as in the case of the Sociedad Ballenera de Corral in Valdivia.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the system began to attract strong criticism because these tokens did not have legal tender status. In practice, workers could use them only in the shops, stores and services belonging to the same company that issued them, often at high prices and without any possibility of using them elsewhere in the country. With the passing of Chile’s first social laws in 1924, during the government of Arturo Alessandri, the payment of wages with tokens or with any means other than legal tender was prohibited. This ban was later reaffirmed in the Labour Code of 1931, enacted during the government of General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo.