Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Franc
| Issuer | Economic Region of Algeria |
|---|---|
| Year | 1944 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in blue on cream paper and centres on a Moorish-arch cartouche bearing the numeral 1 at top and the denomination un franc in italic script, with the Arabic فرنك below. The cartouche is set against a dense guilloche underprint formed by the repeated legend RÉGION ÉCONOMIQUE D'ALGÉRIE in fine letterpress. Elaborate side panels carry the arms of the three Algerian départements — Algiers, Oran, and Constantine — alongside anchors and other civic emblems, with the crowned arms of Algeria at top centre and bottom centre, and the inscription CONTRE-VALEUR DÉPOSÉE AU TRÉSOR in a ruled panel at foot. |
| Reverse lettering | RÉGION ÉCONOMIQUE D'ALGÉRIE 1 un franc فرنك CONTRE-VALEUR DÉPOSÉE AU TRÉSOR |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Produced locally in Algiers by Jules Carbonel after the Allied liberation of North Africa, this note was a stopgap issued by the Comité français de la Libération nationale's administrative apparatus — the "Economic Region" designation reflecting the provisional, committee-governed nature of French Algeria before full postwar institutional normalization. Metropolitan French printing was obviously not an option in 1944.
Carbonel was primarily a commercial printer; these small-denomination fractional notes show it. The series was intended for short-term use only, and most surviving examples show heavy wear consistent with low-value daily transaction pieces that nobody bothered to preserve.