1 Cent - Canterbury Food Center Markham, Illinois

Canterbury Food Center was among the wave of American grocery retailers that issued fractional paper scrip during the late 1960s and early 1970s, when rounding practices and promotional gimmick currency briefly flourished at the local retail level. These pieces circulated as in-store change substitutes, redeemable only at the issuing location — which in this case was a single Markham, Illinois outlet, a south suburban Chicago community. The security paper substrate was a genuine attempt at fraud prevention, unusual for a piece of such negligible face value.