2 Centimes - Groupement de Commerçants - Poissy [78]

Issued by a local merchants' association in Poissy, a commune in the Yvelines department, this zinc piece belongs to the broad category of French emergency coinage produced during the German occupation of 1940–1944, when metal shortages and disrupted supply chains pushed municipalities and commercial groups to issue their own small-denomination tokens. Zinc was the occupier's preferred substitute — aluminum and copper had been requisitioned. These groupement issues rarely circulated beyond the issuing town's immediate market area.