5 Cents Military Payment Certificate

Series 641, which this note belongs to, was issued in August 1965 and remained in circulation until August 1969, when Operation Interconversion replaced it overnight with Series 661. MPC changeovers were deliberately unannounced — troops had a matter of hours to exchange their notes, a mechanism designed to freeze out black market operators and Vietnamese civilians who had accumulated MPC illegally.

The 5-cent denomination saw heavy use in base canteens and PX facilities throughout Southeast Asia. Its small face value made it a practical nuisance to counterfeit, though the series as a whole was routinely forged by local operations in Vietnam.