1 Franc Chambre de Commerce

The Chambres de Commerce across French Oceania stepped in to issue emergency fractional notes during World War One because the region's coin supply had dried up almost entirely — metal was needed elsewhere, and resupply from France was erratic at best. San Francisco was the practical choice for printing, far closer than any metropolitan French alternative and home to the Halpin Lithograph Company, a commercial press with no particular history of banknote production.

That last point matters. Halpin was not a security printer. The notes lack the engraved intaglio work one would expect, and lithographic emergency issues of this type are structurally easier to counterfeit — a problem the issuing authority likely accepted as a lesser evil than a coinless economy.