2 Francs - Chambre de Commerce d'Angoulême [16]

The Chambres de Commerce emergency notes of 1914–1926 exist because the French state simply couldn't produce small-denomination coinage fast enough once wartime hoarding stripped it from circulation. Angoulême's chamber, like dozens of others across France, filled the gap with locally printed bons de nécessité — legal under a series of emergency decrees but technically obligations of a commercial body, not the Banque de France. By 1920, the acute shortage had eased, but many chambers continued issuing because their notes were still circulating and redemption logistics were slow.

Keller frères printed extensively for regional chambers in the Charente, and the presence of a watermark here is worth noting — by no means universal in this class of emergency issue.