50 Centimes

Bayonne's Chamber of Commerce issued this aluminium jeton in 1920 to address a genuine coin famine gripping provincial France. The postwar years saw the Banque de France unable to supply sufficient small change to the regions, prompting dozens of local chambers across the country to issue their own emergency necessity coinage — autorisation de monnaie de nécessité — under government sanction. Bayonne's series was among the more modest provincial efforts, covering only the smallest denominations needed to keep daily commerce moving at market stalls and along the quays of the Adour.