1 Cent - Otis Finer Foods Chicago, Illinois

Otis Finer Foods was a Chicago-based grocery chain that issued paper scrip as a customer convenience or promotional mechanism — a practice common among mid-century American retailers before electronic point-of-sale systems made fractional change trivial to handle. These small-denomination paper pieces circulated within the store ecosystem, typically redeemable against future purchases rather than for cash.

Private merchant scrip of this type was never federally regulated and exists in enormous variety across the U.S. Survival rates are low — most were redeemed and discarded, treated as receipts rather than collectibles.