1935 Alaska RRC Bingle Cent

Coin Details

Description

The 1935 Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation one-cent bingle is the smallest denomination in the eight-piece series of community tokens created for the Matanuska Valley Colony, a New Deal resettlement project in what was then the Territory of Alaska. The Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation (ARRC) operated under the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to establish approximately 200 farming families from the American Midwest — principally from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan — in the fertile Matanuska Valley north of Anchorage beginning in May 1935. Because the remote colony lacked access to conventional banking and currency circulation, the ARRC issued its own scrip in denominations from one cent through ten dollars. The tokens were intended to circulate exclusively within the colony's cooperative store and commissary system, preventing funds from leaving the settlement. The one-cent denomination is struck in aluminum, distinguishing it from the brass pieces used for the higher values. The obverse features the denomination and "BINGLE" — the colloquial term colonists adopted for the tokens — while the reverse carries the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation identification. The Matanuska Colony scrip program was short-lived, as the federal government transitioned the colony toward conventional currency within approximately two years. The aluminum cent pieces saw limited practical use given their negligible purchasing power, and many were discarded or lost.

Rarity Notes

Scarce. The aluminum composition makes this denomination more fragile than the brass higher values. Surviving examples frequently show corrosion or surface degradation. Approximately 75-150 examples survive across all conditions.