Catalog
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| Issuer | Chambre de Commerce d'Oran |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Purple and red letterpress note with an allegorical vignette extending across the full width: at left, a seated North African woman in traditional dress holds a staff, while at centre a male agricultural worker tends the land, and at right a standing figure harvests crops amid tropical vegetation. The denomination 'UN FRANC' is printed in large red letters across the upper centre, flanked by two circular cartouches bearing '1fr' in red at lower left and right. Two manuscript signature lines appear beneath the denomination, captioned 'Le Président' and 'Le Trésorier', with the series designation and serial number printed in red and black below. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE D'ORAN UN FRANC Le Président Le Trésorier Série II 86,452 |
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| Comments |
The Chambres de Commerce emergency notes issued across French Algeria during and after World War One filled a vacuum created by the near-total disappearance of small-denomination coins from circulation — a problem that plagued metropolitan France equally but hit colonial trading towns with particular severity given slower resupply. Oran's Chamber of Commerce was among the more prolific issuers in the region, producing multiple series through the early 1920s as the coin shortage dragged on far longer than authorities had anticipated.
Moullot in Marseille handled printing for numerous Algerian emergency issues of this period, making them the de facto printer for much of the regional bons de nécessité network.