20 Centimes - Groupement des Commerçants, Industriels et Habitants - Joinville-le-Pont [94] Brass

Joinville-le-Pont's merchant association issued this token in 1918 because the wartime French government had effectively drained the national coinage supply — small change disappeared into hoarding and melting pots as metal became a strategic resource. Hundreds of French communes and commercial groups responded identically, flooding local economies with privately struck brass and aluminum substitutes. The Groupement here acted as a quasi-municipal authority purely out of commercial necessity, not civic ambition.