1 Cent Ohio Sales Tax Receipt

Ohio's sales tax token program was already a relic by the time these receipts were printed. Most U.S. states had abandoned fractional tax tokens by the early 1940s, recognizing them as an administrative nuisance. Ohio issued these paper receipts unusually late into the postwar period, well after aluminum and fiber tokens had been phased out elsewhere — a bureaucratic conservatism that makes the series mildly anomalous in American fiscal history.

The watermark is worth noting: its presence on a low-denomination sales receipt reflects an anti-counterfeiting concern that seems disproportionate to the face value, but tax fraud through receipt forgery was a documented problem for state revenue departments.