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Papago Park Canteen 10 cents
| Issuer | Papago Park Prisoner of War Camp Canteen |
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| Year | |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Dollar (1785-date) |
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| Obverse description | Dark blue letterpress printing on plain paper with a red serial number. The design consists of two adjacent panels: a larger horizontal left panel bearing camp identification and canteen inscriptions, and a smaller vertical right panel containing a recessed rectangle indicating the face value. No guilloche or underprint. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Plain pink-toned paper with handwritten notations in ink; no printed design, lettering, or security features. |
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| Comments |
Papago Park, outside Phoenix, held German prisoners of war — mostly Kriegsmarine personnel — during World War II. The camp's canteen scrip was a deliberate control measure: by restricting POWs to internal currency usable only on camp, U.S. authorities prevented accumulated purchasing power from being converted into escape resources. The logic proved imperfect. In December 1944, twenty-five German officers tunneled out in the largest POW escape on American soil, having spent months quietly organizing while the scrip system hummed along undisturbed.