1 Franc - Chambre de Commerce de Bar-le-Duc 55

Bar-le-Duc's Chamber of Commerce issued this note as part of the vast wave of French provincial emergency currency that persisted well into the 1920s — long after the armistice. The town sits in the Meuse, a department that had been within German lines for much of the war, and the local commercial apparatus was slow to normalize. Berger-Levrault, the Nancy printing house with deep roots in official French government printing, produced notes for numerous Lorraine chambers during this period, making their regional output considerable.

The JP#19 reference covers both the 15 and 16 varieties, distinguished by minor typographic or serial differences that are easy to overlook without direct comparison.