1 Franc - Chambre de Commerce D'Amiens [80]

The Chambre de Commerce d'Amiens began issuing emergency fractional notes in 1914–1915 as small change vanished from circulation almost immediately after mobilization — hoarded by a public that had stopped trusting the supply chain entirely. This 1 Franc piece belongs to that first wave of locally-printed necessity currency that proliferated across French departments when the Banque de France couldn't meet demand for small denominations.

The Imprimerie du Progrès de la Somme, which produced this note, was a regional press operating in Amiens until its destruction in 1944. Printing a watermarked emergency note locally rather than contracting a specialist security printer was unusual — the watermark here is a modest deterrent, not a serious anti-counterfeiting measure.