5 Centimes

Barbaira is a small commune in the Aude department of southern France, and this piece is a product of the widespread nécessité coinage movement that flourished in France during and after World War I, when the chronic shortage of small change drove local merchants' associations to issue their own token currency. The Union des Commerçants — a voluntary association of local traders — produced these aluminium jetons to keep retail transactions moving when centimes had effectively vanished from circulation into hoarding.

The El Monedero reference confirms its catalogued status among French local necessity issues, a category that numbers in the thousands across communes large and small.