1 Cent - Food Stamp Scrip Your Supermarket

Food stamp scrip of this type was issued by participating US retailers to return change on food stamp transactions — federal law prohibited giving cash change for food stamp purchases, so stores issued their own fractional paper tokens to bridge the gap. The practice was widespread from the 1960s through the early 1990s, when federal regulations were tightened and most states moved to prohibit merchant-issued scrip entirely.

The 8345 S. Cottage Grove address places this store in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood. These pieces circulated intensely within a single store's customer base and were rarely saved deliberately — survival is almost entirely accidental.