Catalog
5 Centimes
| Issuer | Union des Commerçants de Bougie (Commune of Bougie, Department of Constantine) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916-1918 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Plain letterpress note printed in red on cream paper with clipped corners. The issuer's name appears in two lines of bold red capitals across the upper portion of the note, with a serial number prefixed by "Nº" printed in blue ink in the lower half. No vignette or ornamental underprint is present. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | UNION DES COMMERÇANTS DE BOUGIE Nº |
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| Comments |
Bougie — now Béjaïa, Algeria — produced a wave of small-denomination emergency paper during the First World War as coinage vanished from circulation across France and its territories. The Union des Commerçants, a local merchants' association, stepped in where the colonial banking system could not, issuing fractional notes backed by nothing more formal than collective commercial reputation. These chamber-of-commerce-style nécessités were a common workaround across French Algeria between 1914 and 1918, but the Bougie series remains among the more obscure provincial issues from the Constantine department.
Survival rate is low — small-denomination wartime paper of purely local utility was rarely preserved.