MPC Military Payment Certificate

Military Payment Certificate, commonly known as MPC, was a substitute for American money paid to American military personnel serving in foreign countries. At Hakata MPC was first used in both coin and dollar amounts, but all coin MPC were replaced my American coins in the 1960's. I know from personal experience that coin MPC was not being used at Hakata by 1965. MPC, of course, was used to keep American dollars off the Black Market.

The first five pages of MPC all come from the collection of Larry A. Summers, who was stationed at Hakata from 1961 to 1963. We offer him our sincere thanks for providing these images for us to enjoy.

The following information comes from Larry A. Summers:
"In case you did not know: They would change MPC to discourage Black Market trading by the Japanese Nationals. Some GIs would spend MPC off base. The change was supposed to be a surprise except they would tell us GIs that we had so many days to turn in our old for new. The "smart" GIs would go off base and purchase old MPC from the locals at a discount. Some made some bucks doing this!!!"

Issue Dates for Various MPC

Larry A. Summers

The MPC on this page was very kindly provided by Larry A. Summers.

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