1 Franc - Chambre de Commerce de Beauvais et de l'Oise [60]

French chambers of commerce were authorized to issue emergency small-denomination notes during and after World War One to address a severe shortage of fractional currency — coins had been hoarded or melted, and the Banque de France could not fill the gap quickly enough. The Beauvais chamber's issues persisted into the early 1920s as the coin shortage remained stubbornly unresolved long after the Armistice. Chaix, a Paris printer better known for railway timetables and posters, handled an enormous volume of these provincial emergency emissions in the period.