25 Centimes - Chambre de Commerce - Evreux [27] Brass

The French chamber of commerce emergency coinage system emerged directly from the metal shortages and monetary disruption of the First World War, with local chambers granted authority to issue necessity tokens that would function as small change when the state could not supply it. Évreux, the prefecture of Eure in Normandy, was among dozens of provincial chambers that continued issuing these pieces well into the early 1920s, long after the armistice — the small denomination problem proved far more persistent than the war itself.