1 Cent Arizona State Prison

Prison scrip issued by the Arizona State Prison at Florence occupies a genuinely odd corner of American fiscal history. Penal institutions across the United States operated internal token economies through much of the twentieth century, issuing scrip redeemable only at the prison commissary — partly to prevent cash from circulating among inmates, partly to discourage contraband trading. Florence was among the longer-running examples in the Southwest.

Manila or light cardboard stock was the norm for this type: cheap, locally producible, and deliberately fragile enough to deter accumulation of large sums.