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1 Franc - Chambres de commerce d'Alençon et de Flers [61]
| Issuer | Chambres de Commerce d'Alençon et de Flers |
|---|---|
| Year | 1915 |
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| Currency | Franc (1795-1959) |
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| Obverse description | Green and pink note with an elaborate lace-pattern guilloche border surrounding a salmon-pink underprint bearing the repeated text of the issuing authority. The large denomination "UN FRANC" is printed in bold green letterpress at centre, flanked by the heraldic arms of Alençon and Flers. The deliberation date "10 Août 1915" appears above the denomination, with two manuscript signatures below, attributed to the Presidents of the respective Chambers of Commerce. |
|---|---|
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| Protection type | Watermark |
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| Comments |
Alençon and Flers were paired under a single emergency issue because neither chamber had sufficient commercial weight to justify its own wartime scrip — a pragmatic union born from the paper money drought of 1914–15, when French small change virtually vanished from circulation after hoarding stripped the country of its bronze and silver. These notes were legal for local transactions but not redeemable at the Banque de France, which made the issuing chambers directly liable for redemption out of their own reserves.
The JP reference spread across more than a dozen sub-types indicates substantial dating variation within the series — each dated issue constitutes a distinct catalogued piece, a nuisance for completists but a useful record of how long the emergency persisted in the Orne.