10 Centimes

The Chambres de Commerce emergency coinage of post-WWI France filled a genuine void — the war had drained copper and nickel from circulation so thoroughly that small change effectively disappeared from daily commerce. Blois, as a modest Loire Valley administrative center, was among dozens of regional chambers authorized to issue their own aluminium necessities tokens between 1918 and the early 1920s, when the national coinage supply finally recovered sufficiently to retire them.

Two distinct varieties are catalogued under the El Mon. references, differing in die details — a consequence of multiple production runs across the four-year issue window rather than any single striking event.