Not much of a paper currency man, and don't know alot about these, just the little that I could Google.
I also don't know much about world currency, but I do pick up interesting print jobs in good condition when they aren't expensive. It's more an attempt to curate printing techniques and devices than anything else. Of course, snagging some Zimbabwe notes is both fun and educational. They're also really easy to locate in your collection if you file alphabetically.
I see there's a 5 cent Military Payment Certificate in this batch. MPCs are an interesting topic and there's a few members here who specialize in them. Do a search for MPC to read more about them.
Here is an old thread I created.. I have the 10 Cent mpc - https://www.cointalk.com/threads/military-payment-certificates-and-my-8000th-post.298849/
MPC was used to pay US military personnel overseas. They could only be officially used in US military facilities. There were others like contractors and Australians, Koreans and Thai soldiers in Vietnam who had exchange privileges who also used MPC.
For some reason I can't seem to upload photo right now something's wrong I've got to get it fixed but I do have a 1982 D small and 1982 D large and I'm going to post them side-by-side so everyone can see the difference as soon as I can get this phone to work.
My dad having been career army, I remember the MPCs well. I also remember when the MPCs were called in and replaced by regular US coins and currency; that was about 1958 or 1959. As I recall, there was only a short time after the changeover during which one could still use the MPCs. Thanks for the memory.
Yes. And as I recall, there was a way to exchange them for the foreign currency of the country where the person was stationed — usually Germany, France or the UK. I also remember that there was an earlier attempt to foil counterfeit MPCs before the changeover to regular US currency was made. The feeling was that there was too many MPCs flowing through the black market AND counterfeiting was rampant, most of it in Germany.
Nice collection! I treat bills like I do coins, with several different categories: mint state vs circulated (wonder who touched these?), or best of type available (read: affordable), or strictly for the esthetics (read: artwork), or strictly for the historical era (ie, Revolutionary or Civil War eras). One thing I accidentally discovered with the help of my granddaughter (she's 5) is looking at the bills with my digital microscope - she discovered this, and it certainly gives a new perspective on artwork!
