5 Cents Redstone Arsenal

Military payment scrip issued exclusively for use within the Officers' Open Mess at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama — the home of U.S. Army missile development and, during this period, a major hub for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center program. These small-denomination mess tokens functioned as internal chits, preventing off-post spending and keeping alcohol and food purchases within the club's accounting system. They were never legal tender and had no validity outside the issuing establishment.

Most were discarded or destroyed when the mess accounts closed each fiscal year. Survivors are scarce precisely because nobody thought to keep them.