5 Centimes

Rochefort-sur-Mer's chamber of commerce token dates to the acute small-change shortage that gripped France after 1914, when hoarding and metal requisitioning for the war effort stripped everyday transactions of their smallest denominations. Hundreds of French municipalities and commercial syndicates filled the gap with locally authorized aluminium and cardboard emergency issues, each valid only within a defined commercial zone.

The Syndicat du Commerce et de l'Industrie de Rochefort operated in a port city whose naval arsenal had been a primary French military installation since Colbert ordered its construction in the 1660s — wartime pressure on that facility made functional local commerce a genuine administrative priority.