10 Centimes Provence Region

Issued by the collective chambers of commerce across Provence during a period when the French state could not supply enough small change to keep local commerce functioning — wartime metal requisitions had gutted the normal supply of copper and bronze coinage. Regional and municipal emergency issues like this one proliferated across France between 1914 and the early 1920s, each authority essentially printing its own money out of necessity. Zinc was a compromise material, prone to corrosion, which explains why surviving examples in clean condition are harder to find than the original mintages might suggest.