5 Centimes with date, Bône Chamber of Commerce

Bône's Chamber of Commerce began issuing aluminium emergency tokens in 1915 because the outbreak of World War I had drained metropolitan France of its small bronze coinage — hoarding and the suspension of normal supply chains left Algerian port cities functionally without circulating fractions. Local chambers of commerce across French Algeria were authorized to fill the gap, and Bône, a significant iron-ore export hub on the northeastern coast, was among the first to act. The tokens circulated locally and were never intended for wider acceptance.