Catalog
5 Centimes - Mouvaux
| Issuer | Commune of Mouvaux (Department of Nord) |
|---|---|
| Year | |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Centimes (0.05) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Pink square note with a central rectangular frame enclosing the municipal coat-of-arms of Mouvaux. The numeral '5' appears in the lower left and right corners flanking the frame, with the town name 'MOUVAUX' inscribed across the top and the denomination '5 CENTIMES' along the bottom margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | MOUVAUX 5 5 CENTIMES |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
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| Comments |
Mouvaux is a small commune immediately north of Roubaix, and like dozens of Nord department municipalities it resorted to emergency paper fractional currency during the First World War after metallic coin disappeared from circulation almost overnight in late 1914. The square format — unusual even among the wildly heterogeneous bons de nécessité of the period — was a local choice, not a regional convention.
The printer, A. Berger of Laupheim in Württemberg, is a genuinely odd detail: a German firm producing emergency currency for a French commune under German occupation. This was not uncommon in occupied Nord, where municipal authorities often had no practical alternative but to use whatever printing resources the occupation permitted.