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1 Franc - Chambre de Commerce de Narbonne 11
| Issuer | Chambre de Commerce de Narbonne |
|---|---|
| Year | 1919 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Printed in dark blue and green on cream paper, the obverse carries a repeating guilloche underprint bearing the text CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE DE NARBONNE across the entire field. To the left, an allegorical female figure seated on a rocky plinth, rendered in fine intaglio-style letterpress, holds a staff and is accompanied by classical attributes including a basket; behind her rises a vignette of a medieval fortified structure. The denomination BON DE UN FRANC occupies the upper right in bold letterpress, below which appear the authorization date, guarantee clause, signature lines for the Trésorier and the Président, and the series and serial number designation at the foot. |
|---|---|
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| Protection description | bees; dry embossed stamp (timbre sec) of the Chambre de Commerce applied to validate each note |
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| Comments |
French Chambers of Commerce were authorized to issue emergency small-denomination notes during and after the First World War to compensate for the near-total disappearance of bronze and silver coinage from circulation — hoarded, melted, or consumed by the war economy. The Narbonne chamber's issues were entirely local in scope, printed by a Narbonne firm for use within the Aude department, and redeemable only through that chamber. The dry seal was applied as a rudimentary anti-counterfeiting measure, though the short circulation radius made large-scale forgery economically pointless.
JP#89-18 places this within a well-documented local series, but surviving examples in unfolded condition are less common than the print runs suggest — redemption drives in the early 1920s pulled most back out of circulation.