25 Cents Lincoln Air Force Base

Officers' Open Mess scrip from Lincoln Air Force Base belongs to a category of military payment instruments that operated entirely outside federal monetary law — issued by the mess fund itself, accepted only within the facility, and backed by nothing more than institutional trust. Lincoln AFB was a Strategic Air Command base, home to B-47 Stratojet wings during much of this scrip's active period, and the mess operated under tight SAC discipline that extended even to how officers settled their bar tabs.

These local scrip issues were never catalogued systematically during their circulation life. Most were discarded when a base closed or converted — Lincoln was deactivated in 1966 — which accounts for the relative scarcity of surviving pieces across the entire denomination run.