1 Cent Grant PoW Camp

Camp Grant, near Rockford, Illinois, operated as one of the larger Prisoner of War processing and holding installations in the continental United States during World War II. Like many such camps, it issued its own scrip to allow German POWs to make canteen purchases without handling official U.S. currency — a requirement under the Geneva Convention, which obligated the detaining power to compensate working prisoners and provide a means of spending that compensation.

The scrip was deliberately inconvertible and valueless outside the wire. Most was destroyed at war's end during camp decommissioning, which is why individual denominations from Grant's series surface infrequently today.