Monaco's wartime small-change crisis dragged into 1920, well after the armistice, because bronze coinage remained scarce throughout the early postwar years. These paper fractional notes were a stopgap, printed entirely in-country by a local press — Veuve A. Chêne was not a specialist banknote printer, which shows in the relatively modest production quality compared to contemporary French emergency issues printed by established security printers.
Albert Berthe's engraving credit is unusual for a note at this denomination and scale. The watermarked paper was presumably sourced externally, since Monaco had no domestic papermill capable of security stock.
Monaco's wartime small-change crisis dragged into 1920, well after the armistice, because bronze coinage remained scarce throughout the early postwar years. These paper fractional notes were a stopgap, printed entirely in-country by a local press — Veuve A. Chêne was not a specialist banknote printer, which shows in the relatively modest production quality compared to contemporary French emergency issues printed by established security printers.
Albert Berthe's engraving credit is unusual for a note at this denomination and scale. The watermarked paper was presumably sourced externally, since Monaco had no domestic papermill capable of security stock.