Montoire-sur-le-Loir became a prisoner-of-war holding site during the First World War, and the French officers interned there issued their own small-denomination scrip to manage internal camp commerce — a practice permitted under the conventions governing officer prisoners, who were not required to perform labor and therefore needed a functional internal economy. These notes were produced and circulated entirely within the camp, redeemable only in that context, and had no standing outside the wire.
Green cardboard construction was typical of hasty wartime necessity print runs, not a deliberate aesthetic choice. Few survived the armistice.
Montoire-sur-le-Loir became a prisoner-of-war holding site during the First World War, and the French officers interned there issued their own small-denomination scrip to manage internal camp commerce — a practice permitted under the conventions governing officer prisoners, who were not required to perform labor and therefore needed a functional internal economy. These notes were produced and circulated entirely within the camp, redeemable only in that context, and had no standing outside the wire.
Green cardboard construction was typical of hasty wartime necessity print runs, not a deliberate aesthetic choice. Few survived the armistice.