Constantine's Chamber of Commerce began issuing local necessity coinage after World War I left French Algeria chronically short of small change — the metropolitan supply never fully recovered, and remote interior cities like Constantine felt the shortage most acutely. These aluminium jetons circulated as genuine small-denomination substitutes rather than trade tokens in any commercial sense.
The aluminium composition was a pragmatic response to postwar metal economics, not an aesthetic choice.
Constantine's Chamber of Commerce began issuing local necessity coinage after World War I left French Algeria chronically short of small change — the metropolitan supply never fully recovered, and remote interior cities like Constantine felt the shortage most acutely. These aluminium jetons circulated as genuine small-denomination substitutes rather than trade tokens in any commercial sense.
The aluminium composition was a pragmatic response to postwar metal economics, not an aesthetic choice.