1 Cent - Thriftway Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Thriftway was a cooperative supermarket chain operating across the mid-Atlantic states, and these store-issued paper cents were a promotional trading device — not scrip in any emergency sense, but a deliberate loyalty mechanism designed to encourage return visits. Customers accumulated them against future purchases at participating locations.

Retail trade notes of this type proliferated in American grocery chains during the late 1960s and early 1970s before FTC scrutiny of promotional trading schemes effectively killed the format.