10 Cents - La Baraka Baie-du-Febvre, Quebec

La Baraka was a restaurant-bar in Baie-du-Febvre, a small municipality on the south shore of the St. Lawrence in Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec. This 10-cent token note is a scrip issue — private fractional currency produced by a local business, almost certainly to manage small change shortages or to keep customers cycling money back through the establishment rather than spending it elsewhere. Quebec saw a modest wave of such commercial scrip through the mid-twentieth century, particularly in rural communities where coin supply was inconsistent and banking infrastructure thin.

Survival rate for these hyperlocal issues is largely accidental — kept as curiosities rather than redeemed, which is the only reason most exist at all.