1 Cent H.M.C.S. Lévis

Canteen currency issued aboard or at the shore establishment HMCS Lévis was a practical solution to a persistent problem: preventing Canadian naval personnel from spending canteen tokens or scrip at civilian establishments. The Royal Canadian Navy used base-specific paper scrip extensively during the Second World War to control canteen revenues and reduce the movement of cash through lower-deck hands. HMCS Lévis, a Flower-class corvette commissioned in May 1941, was lost to a U-boat torpedo in September of that year — giving this particular canteen issue an extraordinarily compressed window of possible circulation, likely no more than a few months.