10 Cents Military Payment Certificate

Military Payment Certificates were introduced in 1946 to curb black market currency trading in occupied territories — soldiers were paid in MPC rather than dollars, limiting the usefulness of U.S. currency to local populations operating outside sanctioned exchange channels. Series 521, which covers this note, was issued from May 1954 and replaced in a "conversion day" operation on May 27, 1958, when all outstanding MPC were simultaneously declared void and exchanged for the new series.

Conversion days were conducted without warning, deliberately, to catch black marketeers holding undeclared stocks. Anyone not in authorized possession had no recourse.