Catalog
25 Centimes
| Issuer | Poissy, Commune of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
| Type | Emergency coin |
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| Obverse description | Central field bears the coat of arms of the town of Poissy, flanked above by the town name and below by the name of the department in which it is situated. The inscriptions are rendered in bold capital letters within a simple border, presenting a plain civic design typical of French First World War-era emergency municipal coinage. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The large denomination numeral '25' dominates the central field, accompanied by the 'c' centimes abbreviation to the right, with the date '1918' inscribed below. A circular legend surrounds the central motif, reading 'UNION DU COMMERCE & DE L'INDUSTRIE', interrupted at the base by a small five-pointed star serving as a punctuation device. The overall design is characteristic of French wartime necessity coinage issued by local chambers of commerce. |
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| Additional information |
Poissy's 1918 aluminum issue belongs to the vast category of French wartime nécessité coinage, produced when the Third Republic's small-denomination bronze and nickel coins vanished from circulation almost entirely — hoarded, melted, or swallowed by wartime metal demands. Municipalities across France filled the gap themselves, with results ranging from crude card tokens to reasonably well-struck aluminum pieces like this one. Poissy, an industrial commune on the Seine west of Paris, had the manufacturing infrastructure to do it properly.