1 Cent - Consumers Supermarkets Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Consumers Supermarkets operated a chain of grocery stores in the Milwaukee area and issued these small-denomination paper scrip tokens during the early 1970s as a workaround for the chronic coin shortage that plagued American retail throughout that decade. Rather than round up or absorb fractional change, some regional grocers issued their own redeemable paper cents — valid only at their own registers.

The practice was entirely legal but short-lived. As the U.S. Mint ramped up cent production and the shortage eased by the mid-1970s, the business case for private scrip evaporated. Consumers itself was eventually absorbed into larger regional grocery consolidations, taking the redemption network with it.