Introduction To The Tally Stick
By Brandon Frei, WINS#868

I conducted a world coins trade a few months ago and received an unexpected gift from a friend and fellow member of the club. In the box I received, there was a stick with strange markings on it labeled as “Tally Stick” from Great Britain. My curiosity was piqued as I had never seen or heard of such a thing. I decided to do some research and I found that Tally Sticks potentially date back to the BC era. Due to the lack of clarity of their use in the Paleolithic Age, this article, will focus on Tally Sticks in relation to Great Britain.

These Tally Stick reach back to about 1100 AD and were around for over 700 years. Back then, the government dabbled in the credit and taxation system using sticks instead of the hard plastic we use today. King Henry the First initiated the practice of writing out the sum of money represented on Hazelwood (or whatever was available) and splitting the wood so both parties could keep track of the monies owed and prevent fraud. This was how the king was able to spend money that was not actually stored in his coffers. One half of the stick was kept in the royal treasury and the other was circulated as currency.

It is important to note that there were a lot of illiterates in that period of time, since most of the inhabitants of England were farmers, and the average citizen of England could not read. Because of this, the Tally Sticks were notched to represent different sums of money. I cannot say with certainty what notch equated to what value, but the system seemed to work.

Over time, the process evolved to further prevent counterfeiting and the wood was cut lengthwise but the halves were different lengths. The person making the loan would keep the longer part, or the “stock” of the stick while the debtor would receive the shorter end. To the best of my knowledge, this is where the terms “stockholder” and “short end of the stick” come from.