5 Francs / 1 Belga

The wartime production of Belgian notes by Thomas De La Rue in London is easily misread as a matter of practical convenience. It wasn't. By 1943, the Belgian government-in-exile was using London printing runs as a deliberate parallel currency strategy — maintaining an officially sanctioned note supply outside German-occupied territory to undercut Reichskreditkassen scrip and collaborationist monetary controls.

With over twelve million printed, the run was substantial, but repatriation and postwar redemption absorbed most of the stock. The 1944 liberation complicated distribution further, compressing the effective circulation window considerably.