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25 Centimes - Châteauroux
| Issuer | Dépôt d'Officiers Prisonniers de Guerre de Châteauroux |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916 |
| Type | Vouchers |
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| Obverse description | Plain buff-grey card stock printed in black letterpress without vignette or ornamental underprint. The issuing authority appears in two lines at the top, followed by a small decorative typographic separator, with the canteen designation and denomination rendered in progressively larger type below. A serial prefix letter and number appear at the lower left. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Plain buff-grey card stock bearing two circular violet handstamps applied side by side, each reading around the circumference the name of the issuing depot and bearing an illegible central device with the text LE COMMANDANT at the top. The stamps appear to have been applied inverted relative to the obverse orientation. |
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| Comments |
Châteauroux housed one of France's principal officer prisoner-of-war depots during the First World War, and this 25 centimes note was issued internally for use within that facility — not for general French commerce. These camp issues existed because regular coinage was withheld from prisoners as a security measure; small denominations in paper allowed controlled canteen purchases while preventing detainees from accumulating specie that might fund an escape.
Officer camps operated under different conditions than enlisted depots — the Hague Conventions entitled officers to certain provisions and pay, which created a genuine need for an internal monetary system rather than a purely token one.