5 Dollars Military Payment Certificate

Military Payment Certificates were introduced in 1946 to replace the dollar in U.S. military occupation zones, specifically to prevent black market currency operations that had become endemic in postwar Europe and the Pacific. Series 481, which covers this note, was issued from March 1951 through May 1954 — spanning the final phase of the Korean War and the early occupation period that followed.

MPCs could be exchanged only by authorized personnel, and "conversion days" — announced without warning — instantly rendered old series worthless to anyone holding them outside the system. That mechanism was the entire point.