25 Fr. Kolen charbon - Vooruit

Vooruit — "Forward" — was the flagship cooperative of the Belgian Workers' Party, founded in Ghent in 1880. By the early twentieth century it had grown into one of the largest consumer cooperatives in Europe, operating its own bakery, pharmacy, and retail stores. Internal scrip like this 25-franc coal token ("kolen" = coal, "charbon" = the French equivalent) was used to credit members' accounts against future fuel purchases — a system that kept working-class households supplied through winter without cash changing hands at the point of delivery.

The bilingual designation reflects Ghent's administrative reality under Belgian language law, not any special printing requirement.