5 Centimes - Société coopérative d'alimentation - Dortan [01]

Dortan is a small industrial commune in the Ain département, historically dependent on plastics manufacturing. Cooperative store tokens like this one filled a genuine monetary gap in tight-knit factory communities, where workers were often paid partly in scrip redeemable only at the company-affiliated store — a practice that kept wages circulating internally and tied laborers economically to their employer. The aluminium composition dates this piece to the early twentieth century, when that metal became the practical choice for low-denomination tokens after wartime brass shortages disrupted earlier token production across France.