1 Cent - Big E Warehouse Foods Indianapolis, Indiana

Big E Warehouse Foods was one of several Midwestern discount grocery chains that issued small-denomination paper scrip during the mid-1970s as a workaround for the nuisance of making exact change on promotional pricing. The practice was common enough that the Federal Reserve took no formal action, though the legal status of such private fractional currency was always quietly ambiguous — the U.S. had banned private paper money under the 1862 National Currency Act, but enforcement against retailer scrip was effectively nonexistent by this period.

The Indianapolis issuance dates bracket the chain's peak operating years before consolidation pressures reshaped regional grocery in the early 1980s.