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5 Cents Iron Bottom Bay Club
| Issuer | Iron Bottom Bay Club |
|---|---|
| Year | 1943-1945 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Plain light grey paper with perforated edges at top and bottom. Three lines of dark blue letterpress text centred on the face: the issuer's initials "I. B. B. C.", the denomination "5c", and the place of issue "Port Purvis". |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | I. B. B. C. 5c Port Purvis |
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| Comments |
Iron Bottom Bay Club scrip was issued for use by Allied personnel at Port Purvis, Florida Island, during the Guadalcanal campaign period. "Iron Bottom Bay" was the name sailors gave to the stretch of water between Guadalcanal and Florida Island after the catastrophic naval losses there in 1942 and 1943 — dozens of warships from both sides went down in those engagements, and the name stuck hard enough to end up printed on canteen currency.
These notes functioned as mess or recreation club tokens, keeping U.S. dollars out of local circulation. Surviving examples are genuinely scarce; most scrip of this type was destroyed at the close of operations or simply disintegrated in the humidity.