USA / MPC retailer 1 Dollar 1947 M12, Series 471. Military Payment Certificates. Banknote, WW2 Bills, Currency. Army Memorabilia. United States.

Used

Military payment certificates, or MPC, were a form of currency used to pay U.S. military personnel in certain foreign countries. They were used in one area or another from a few months after the end of World War II until a few months after the end of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War retailer – from 1946 until 1973. MPC utilized layers of line lithography to create colorful banknotes that could be produced cheaply. Fifteen series of MPCs were created. However, only 13 series were issued. The remaining two were largely destroyed, although some examples remain. Among the 13 released series a total of 94 notes are recognized.

MPC in popular culture: A Korean War C-day is a key plot element of "Change Day," an episode from the sixth season of the television series M*A*S*H. Major Charles Emerson Winchester III schemes to purchase soon-to-be-worthless MPC from local farmers and merchants for cash at 10% of face value, then trade it in and pocket a 900% profit. His plan is foiled when Hawkeye Pierce and B.J. Hunnicutt arranges for the military police to set up a roadblock that delays him from reaching camp in time for the exchange.

In the Vietnam War novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford, Marine Sergeant James T. "Joker" Davis encounters an officer who habitually plays Monopoly with one of his subordinates. The two use MPC in place of the game's standard play money and divide all listed rents and prices by 10 (e.g. paying $35 rent instead of $350 for landing on Oriental Avenue with a hotel).

In “Hard Stripe”, a 1989 episode of Tour of Duty, a Finance Corps lieutenant at Tan Son Nhut in 1968 spots a soldier in illegal possession of a five dollar treasury note and warns him to convert it to MPCs when the treasury office opens the next morning.

American, USA, Military, Certificate, Banknote, Army Note, Currency, WWI, WWII, Vietnam War, Korean War, MPC, Memorabilia, AMC