1 Cent - Allen's Market Chicago, Illinois

Allen's Market was among hundreds of American retailers that issued small-denomination paper scrip during the early 1930s, when acute coin shortages — driven by hoarding at the onset of the Depression — made it genuinely difficult to make change. These merchant fractional notes circulated hyperlocally, typically redeemable only at the issuing store, and most were destroyed once federal emergency coin supplies stabilized or the issuing business closed.

Chicago examples are harder to document than scrip from smaller markets, largely because urban turnover was high and few merchants kept redemption records. Allen's Market itself leaves almost no paper trail outside the scrip itself.