1 Franc - Chambres de Commerce de Chateauroux [36]

The Chambres de Commerce emergency notes issued across provincial France during and after World War One represent one of the largest decentralized currency experiments in modern French history — by 1920, over 500 local chambers had issued their own paper in denominations ranging from 5 centimes to 2 francs. Châteauroux, the prefecture of Indre, was among the earlier provincial issuers, stepping in to address the acute coin shortage that the wartime metal demands had created.

Badel was a local press, not a specialist security printer. The watermark is the primary anti-counterfeiting measure, which set a low bar even by the standards of the series.