1 Cent - Kash N' Karry Tampa, Florida

Kash N' Karry was a Florida supermarket chain that issued small-denomination paper scrip during the mid-1970s as a workaround for the chronic coin shortage that intermittently plagued American retail through that decade. Rather than rounding transactions up or leaving customers short, some regional grocers issued proprietary fractional currency redeemable only at their own registers — a practice with roots going back to Civil War-era store tokens and Depression-era merchant scrip.

Redeemable in-store only, these notes had no incentive to leave circulation, which is precisely why intact surviving examples are harder to find than their mundane origins might suggest.