25 Centimes Theux

Belgian municipal emergency money — monnaie de nécessité — flooded the country after the German occupation cut off access to central banking infrastructure in late 1914. Theux, a small Ardennes town in the hills above Liège, was typical of hundreds of communes forced to issue their own fractional notes when coin disappeared almost overnight into hoarding and German requisition. The authorization to do so came through the Comité Central de Secours et d'Alimentation, though individual communes arranged their own printing locally.

Lithographie Ch. Vinche in Verviers produced several municipal issues for the surrounding region. Security was minimal by design — the serial number and civic seal were the primary safeguards against forgery, a practical concession given wartime constraints.