25 Centimes

Douéra is a small commune southwest of Algiers, and like dozens of Algerian municipalities during the First World War, it resorted to issuing its own emergency fractional notes when wartime metal shortages pulled centimes coins out of circulation almost entirely. The French metropolitan government could not supply adequate small change to the colonies, so local authorities improvised — printing or typing denominations on paper and stamping them with an official cachet to confer legitimacy.

The handstamp was the only security feature available to most of these communes, and its impression quality varies considerably across surviving examples. Forgery was a practical concern even at this denomination.