25 Cents Pusan; NCO Open Mess

Military payment scrip issued for use within the NCO Open Mess at Pusan during the Korean War period. These mess tokens occupied a gray regulatory zone — not official Military Payment Certificates, which were issued theater-wide by the U.S. Treasury, but locally authorized scrip intended to keep dollar-equivalent currency contained within a single facility. Accountability was the point: prevent hard currency from leaking into the Korean civilian economy.

Tan paper stock, printed locally rather than through a stateside security printer. Survival rates are low simply because nobody saved them — they were spent, discarded, or voided when the mess closed or converted to MPC.