10 Centimes - Chambres de Commerce du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais

The Chambres de Commerce du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais issued these small-denomination emergency notes because the two departments had been partially occupied by German forces since 1914, severing normal monetary supply chains from Paris. The Banque de France simply could not keep fractional coinage moving into the region. Local chambers of commerce across occupied and unoccupied France filled the gap under a 1914 government authorization, but the Nord and Pas-de-Calais issues are notable for persisting deep into 1918 — the occupation's disruptions outlasted most comparable regional emergency series elsewhere in France.

Small-format issues from this joint chamber authority are among the harder wartime French nécessités to find without creasing damage, a predictable consequence of their size and daily transactional use.