25 Cents Fort Clayton; Canal Zone

P.A.N.C.O. scrip was internal military currency issued by U.S. Navy canteen operations in the Canal Zone, redeemable only within the canteen system at Fort Clayton — a deliberate containment measure to prevent U.S. dollars from leaking into the local Panamanian economy. The arrangement became politically charged after the 1964 Flag Riots, when tensions over American economic presence in the Zone intensified pressure on exactly these kinds of parallel monetary systems.

The perforation security feature is characteristically low-tech for the period, borrowed from transit token and coupon practices rather than banknote production. Fort Clayton itself was not decommissioned until 1999 under the Carter-Torrijos treaties.