Coal companies used company stores and scrip to keep miners’ wages circulating back into company coffers through purchases and rent, a secondary form of economic exploitation that was especially important in hard times and for smaller firms. Companies issued scrip in paper and, more commonly, metal forms made of materials such as aluminum, brass, bronze, copper, nickel, and nickel silver, and in the earliest days of mining some miners were paid with scrip instead of cash until that practice was outlawed in 1887. State law then required payment in legal tender at two-week intervals, while scrip could still be issued in advance of payday at a miner’s request if wages were due, with its value deducted from earnings on payday. Scrip helped companies preserve cash for outside purchases, served as an accounting device that showed a miner his working balance, and effectively meant that miners who accepted it were extending credit to the company, while miners could also use it as an advance against future wages. A black market in scrip developed in which it could be traded for cash at discounts of up to forty percent, and some miners, seeking a better standard of living for their families or tools for their work, drew all their earnings in scrip and became deeply tied to the company store, especially during hard times and the Great Depression. In mining communities, which were dry, scrip also made it harder to buy liquor because a miner had to sell it for cash or find a merchant willing to accept it at a steep discount.