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10 Centimes
| Issuer | Union des Commerçants d'Orleansville |
|---|---|
| Year | 1915 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | UNION DES COMMERÇANTS ⁕ 0fr.10 ⁕ D'ORLEANSVILLE (Translation: Orléansville Merchants Union.) |
| Reverse description | Plain orange cardboard reverse bearing a circular handstamp inscribed UNION DES COMMERÇANTS / D'ORLEANSVILLE, with a cursive manuscript signature extending to the right of the stamp. A handwritten validation mark appears to the upper left. |
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| Comments |
Orleansville — today Chlef — was a mid-sized Algerian colonial town, and like dozens of similar communities during the First World War, its merchants banded together to issue small-denomination emergency scrip when the acute coin shortage hit French Algeria in 1914–15. The metropolitan government's wartime metal demands stripped bronze and nickel from everyday commerce, leaving market transactions without viable small change. Local trade associations stepped in.
The Union des Commerçants issues from this period are among the more ephemeral of Algeria's WWI nécessité notes — printed on tinted cardboard rather than engraved banknote paper, circulated among ordinary shopkeepers, and rarely preserved once the shortage eased.