5 Centimes

Municipal emergency notes from French Algeria are among the least-documented issues in the entire notaphilic record. Marengo — a small colonial commune roughly 60 kilometers west of Algiers, renamed in honor of Napoleon's 1800 battle — produced this 5 centimes piece during the acute small-change shortage that gripped both metropolitan France and its territories from 1914 onward. Coin hoarding and metal demands for the war effort emptied circulation of bronze almost entirely.

Communal issues at this denomination are particularly fragile survivors. Paper passed through many hands at the lowest transactional level, and few municipalities bothered to redeem or preserve remainder stocks.