Poissy's Chamber of Commerce token emerged from the near-total disappearance of small bronze coinage in France during the First World War, hoarded by civilians and consumed by wartime metal demands simultaneously. Hundreds of French communes and commercial associations issued their own aluminium and cardboard substitutes between 1914 and 1922 to keep local transactions functioning at all.
The Union du Commerce & de l'Industrie de Poissy — a town on the Seine best known as an automotive manufacturing center — was among the smaller issuers, which accounts for the relative obscurity of the type within Elie's catalog of French necessity coinage.
Poissy's Chamber of Commerce token emerged from the near-total disappearance of small bronze coinage in France during the First World War, hoarded by civilians and consumed by wartime metal demands simultaneously. Hundreds of French communes and commercial associations issued their own aluminium and cardboard substitutes between 1914 and 1922 to keep local transactions functioning at all.
The Union du Commerce & de l'Industrie de Poissy — a town on the Seine best known as an automotive manufacturing center — was among the smaller issuers, which accounts for the relative obscurity of the type within Elie's catalog of French necessity coinage.