pog
n.— «Reed said the Army’s Post Exchanges don’t deal in pennies anymore, rounding change at the register up and down instead. Metal coins have been replaced by cardboard disks called “pogs” because coinage is heavy and hard to transport and physical currency must be secured.» —“Smart cards, kiosks ease Army life” by Bryan Harris Kiosk Marketplace Research Jan. 9, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
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A “pog,” of course, refers to the cardboard disk originally used as a lid for milk bottles. The word is an acronym for “passion-orange-guava,” one of the juice varieties produced by the Haleakala Dairy in Hawaii. In the early 1990’s, pogs were a highly collectible item in Hawaii. Apparently citizen-soldiers from Hawaii posted in Iraq and elsewhere overseas had a hand in coming up with a name for the cardboard “coins.”
I remember the fad well. Pogs were collected by children all across the country, not just Hawaii, in the 1990s.