5 Centimes

The Banque de la Réunion's 1917 small-denomination emergency issues were a direct response to the acute coin shortage that swept French colonial territories during the First World War. With metal diverted to the war effort, low-value coinage disappeared from circulation almost entirely across the French empire, and overseas banks were authorized to issue provisional paper to fill the gap.

The embossed dry seal was the bank's primary — and minimal — anti-counterfeiting measure, practical for rapid production of notes that were never intended to last.