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50 Centimes
| Issuer | Banque d'Emission de Lille |
|---|---|
| Year | 1915 |
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| Currency | Franc (1795-1959) |
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| Obverse description | Yellow-green tinted note with a central oval vignette enclosing the large bold denomination '50 CENTIMES' against a guilloche underprint, flanked by two allegorical female figures seated at either side of the city arms of Lille bearing a fleur-de-lis. Elaborate baroque scrollwork borders the oval, with the issuer's name arching across the upper register and the series designation and serial number printed in the upper corners. Two facsimile signatures appear below the denomination, one for the President and one for the Administrateur Délégué. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Printed in dark blue-green on cream paper, the reverse centres on a large engraved vignette of the Porte de Paris, Lille's celebrated Baroque triumphal arch, set within an oval frame. Wide laurel branches sweep around the upper and lateral borders, with a sunburst mask cartouche at top centre and a fleur-de-lis device in the upper right corner; the date '1915' appears in a decorative cartouche at the base of the central vignette. Denomination panels reading '50 CENTIMES' are placed in the upper left and lower right corners, with the anti-counterfeiting penal code warning in a scroll cartouche at lower left. |
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| Comments |
The Banque d'Emission de Lille was a wartime creation, established under German occupation to manage local credit needs after the fall of Lille in October 1914. French banking infrastructure had effectively collapsed — the Banque de France had evacuated its reserves — leaving the city's commercial life dependent on emergency paper issued by whatever local authority could organize it.
Delemar & Dubar were a Lille printing firm, not a security printer. That the notes were produced locally under occupation rather than sent abroad for printing tells you something about both the urgency and the isolation of the situation.