25 Centimes - Chambre de Commerce de Cholet 49

Cholet's chamber of commerce issued these cardboard necessities tokens in 1917 as the war had drained France of its metallic coinage — copper and nickel diverted to munitions, hoarding endemic, and the Banque de France offering no practical solution at the local level. Hundreds of French chambers of commerce filled the gap independently, producing their own emergency issues under a 1916 authorization that gave regional bodies temporary authority to circulate small denominations.

Cardboard tokens of this type rarely survived circulation in any condition; the material degrades rapidly with handling and humidity.