Team, Wanted to post this in the hopes of stirring some memories of you younger days if you were ever in the service. Thanks for looking Bone
Your notes are in great condition. My grandfather gave these to me a long time ago and haven't been taken care of that well as you can see. They are nice to look at in my collection though. Bonedigger, do you know anything about these notes I have?
Hey Bone - jwevansv's notes are in the condition I saw most frequently - well circulated. In fact, the only time I ever saw MPC in the condition of the ones you posted was on a C-day (I went through 2 of them in 1954-55). C-day was the day that every US military base in the world using MPC was locked down at the same time, and everyone was required to turn in their old MPC for a new series. The idea was to wipe out the value of all the MPC that had migrated illegally to the local economies - mostly through black market activities. I was in Korea for the changeover in 1954, which came around midnight local time, and in Japan for the 1955 event, which occurred in the late afternoon. I recall being one of the small minority of GIs out and about in Tokyo that evening as I had converted some cash to yen that morning, but the many folks who were "yenless" were effectively broke. They couldn't do much in the PX or USO service clubs either, as the old had been declared worthless and collected, but the new wasn't going to be issued until the next day. Your notes were first issued in 1952, and jwevansv's are from 1948. The first two digits of the series number are the year, and the third digit is the sequential number of that issue for the year; so both of you have posted "first series" notes. Almost all of the MPC issued has a third digit "1" in the series number, as generally there were either 1 or no C-days in a given year. Thanks for the memories Bone. BTW MPC was issued in 5, 10, 25 and 50 cent denominations, and $1, $5, $10 and $20. Real Wheaties were used for cents. Greenbacks were used by some civilians, but military personnel were not supposed to posses them, and the official stand was that if you received any in the mail from home you were supposed to take them to the finance office and exchange them for MPC. Since the official exchange rate was 360 yen to the dollar, but greenbacks could be sold on the black market for 450-500 yen you are free to guess how many guys obeyed the rules when they managed to latch onto greenbacks.
My oldman spent some time in 51-52 Korea, as a matter-of-fact he spent a great portion of his career in the 'Far East' (WW-II, Hawaii) as a USMC Enlisted, Lieutenant, Captain & Major. B
