25 Centimes

Following the destruction wrought across northern France during the First World War, the Banque de France faced a severe small-denomination coin shortage that the central government was slow to address. Local chambers of commerce stepped in, issuing their own emergency nécessité tokens — a practice with French precedent stretching back to earlier crises. Amiens, whose cathedral city had sat dangerously close to the front lines, was among dozens of provincial chambers authorized to produce these stopgap pieces.

The three catalogue references correspond to distinct die varieties struck across the issue's production run, a detail worth noting for type collectors working this series.