0,10 Franc

The Chambre de Commerce de Djibouti issued this cardboard emergency note in 1919 to address a chronic small-change shortage that had plagued French Somaliland throughout the First World War. Metal coin production had been prioritized for the war effort in Europe, leaving colonial outposts like Djibouti starved of fractional currency for years. The chamber of commerce — not the colonial treasury — stepped in as issuer, a common workaround in French territories where central banking infrastructure was thin.

The cardboard substrate makes survivors particularly vulnerable to humidity damage, and Djibouti's climate was not kind to them.