1 Cent - Food Stamp Credit Tops All Foods

Tops All Foods was a regional American supermarket chain, and like many grocers in the mid-twentieth century it issued its own fractional food stamp scrip to handle the penny-change problem created by the U.S. federal food stamp program — rounding transactions to the nearest dollar left small balances that couldn't legally be paid out in cash. These merchant-issued tokens and paper chits filled that gap, authorized under USDA regulations that permitted participating retailers to issue their own change-making instruments.

The embossed seal is the only security feature, which reflects how seriously — or not — counterfeiting of one-cent scrip was taken.