Shire Silver Solutions

This is from a USA Today article (http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-04-05-scrip_N.htm) and is about paper currency, but the concept would work just as well for Shire Silver:

Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.

The systems generally work like this: Businesses
and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a
discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at
stores that accept the currency.

Workers with dwindling wages are paying for
groceries, yoga classes and fuel with Detroit Cheers, Ithaca Hours in
New York, Plenty in North Carolina or BerkShares in Massachusetts.

Ed Collom, a University of Southern Maine
sociologist who has studied local currencies, says they encourage
people to buy locally. Merchants, hurting because customers have cut
back on spending, benefit as consumers spend the local cash.

"We wanted to make new options available," says
Jackie Smith of South Bend, Ind., who is working to launch a local
currency. "It reinforces the message that having more control of the
economy in local hands can help you cushion yourself from the blows of
the marketplace."

About a dozen communities have local currencies,
says Susan Witt, founder of BerkShares in the Berkshires region of
western Massachusetts. She expects more to do it.

Under the BerkShares system, a buyer goes to one
of 12 banks and pays $95 for $100 worth of BerkShares, which can be
spent in 370 local businesses. Since its start in 2006, the system, the
largest of its kind in the country, has circulated $2.3 million worth
of BerkShares. In Detroit, three business owners are printing $4,500
worth of Detroit Cheers, which they are handing out to customers to
spend in one of 12 shops.

During the Depression, local governments,
businesses and individuals issued currency, known as scrip, to keep
commerce flowing when bank closings led to a cash shortage.

By law, local money may not resemble federal
bills or be promoted as legal tender of the United States, says Claudia
Dickens of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

"We print the real thing," she says.

The IRS gets its share. When someone pays for
goods or services with local money, the income to the business is
taxable, says Tom Ochsenschlager of the American Institute of Certified
Public Accountants. "It's not a way to avoid income taxes, or we'd all
be paying in Detroit dollars," he says.

Pittsboro, N.C., is reviving the Plenty, a
defunct local currency created in 2002. It is being printed in
denominations of $1, $5, $20 and $50. A local bank will exchange $9 for
$10 worth of Plenty.

"We're a wiped-out small town in America," says
Lyle Estill, president of Piedmont Biofuels, which accepts the Plenty.
"This will strengthen the local economy. ... The nice thing about the
Plenty is that it can't leave here."