1 Franc

When French metropolitan banks suspended convertibility and hoarded coin at the outbreak of war in August 1914, Algerian commerce ground toward paralysis almost immediately. The Chambre de Commerce d'Alger — like dozens of French provincial and colonial chambers — stepped in to plug the fractional void, issuing small-denomination emergency notes with no formal central bank backing. These were instruments of commercial necessity, not monetary policy.

Adolphe Jourdan's Algiers press, which had operated since 1871 primarily as a printer of books and administrative documents, did not long outlast this series — the firm closed in 1916, making it likely that later dates in the 1914–1922 span were produced elsewhere.