Maybe they could work a little bit like tokens do? You have your counter on the screen next to your cash that keeps track of them? Rather than having an actually item in your inventory
I think I'd rather it was a single item in your inventory. I understand that might be inconvenient, but I think it's better than a third virtual currency.
Panda, I really like where this is going, and this is what I meant by my original post. I'll see if I can get sometype of input from one of the server overlords soon.