1 Cent - H & J Artesia, New Mexico

H & J Food Baskets issued small-denomination scrip like this to manage change-making in an era when American retailers — particularly independent grocers in rural markets — routinely ran short of low-denomination coinage during periods of mint output shortfalls. The early 1970s copper shortage and the broader coin hoarding behavior of the 1960s created genuine operational headaches for small-town merchants, and privately printed fractional scrip was a practical, if legally murky, workaround.

Artesia, a small city in Eddy County sustained largely by oil refining and dairy farming, had a merchant culture built around family-owned stores competing with regional chains. Scrip like this never circulated beyond the issuing store's customer base, which is precisely why surviving examples are uncommon — they were redeemed, not saved.