1 Cent Michigan State House Branch Prison

Prison scrip occupies a peculiar corner of American notaphily, and Michigan's Marquette Branch Prison issues are among the more documented examples. These small-denomination notes functioned as internal currency within the prison economy, allowing inmates to make purchases at the commissary — a system used by several American state penitentiaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to reduce the handling of real money inside the facility.

Marquette was a maximum-security institution, and the scrip system was explicitly designed to limit contraband and control inmate purchasing power. The 1-cent denomination is the smallest in the series, which tells you something about how tightly the economy was calibrated.