Many merchants solved the "lack of change" problem of the Civil War by printing their own private notes (scrip, or as they were known at the time, "shinplasters.") This practice was most predominant in the South, where the coinage crisis was the greatest, but was also widespread in the North. All sorts of companies and organizations printed private scrip. Scrip was printed by small towns, counties or even states, by merchants, by railroads, by colleges and even by individuals. Generally these notes were redeemable for goods or services from the issuing merchant. One of the advantages to this arrangement was that if the notes were not redeemed, the issuing merchant would make a substantial profit on the transaction that issued the scrip. Because of this, Private Scrip was generally seen as an unpopular solution to the change problem.