50 Centimes

France's postwar coinage of the early 1920s was a direct consequence of wartime metal hoarding and the near-total disappearance of silver from circulation — the 50 centimes denomination had been struck in silver as recently as 1920, but rampant melting and export made a lighter, baser alloy inevitable. Aluminium bronze was the practical answer, adopted across several low denominations simultaneously. The Paris Mint transitioned quickly, and these pieces entered circulation into an economy still wrestling with franc depreciation and the fiscal aftermath of reconstruction debt.