5 Centimes Caudebec-lès-Elbeuf

Caudebec-lès-Elbeuf is a textile town on the Seine south of Rouen, and this note belongs to the vast ecosystem of French emergency municipal and commercial scrip that flooded the country from 1914 onward as bronze coinage disappeared almost entirely from circulation — hoarded, melted, or absorbed by wartime industry. The Union des Commerçants issues were local merchant coalition tokens in paper form, accepted within a defined commercial radius and backed by nothing more than collective retail trust.

At 5 centimes, this is the smallest practical denomination in the series. Notes at this level were often the first to be lost, destroyed, or simply worn to illegibility.