50 Centimes

Aalst was among the first Belgian cities overrun in August 1914, and its occupation by German forces within weeks of the war's outbreak severed normal banking functions almost immediately. Notes like this one — issued on municipal authority rather than any banking institution — were the direct result: local governments across occupied Belgium were left to improvise their own fractional currency as coins vanished from circulation almost overnight, hoarded by a population with no confidence in what came next.

Van de Putte-Goossens was a local Aalst printer, not a security press, which is exactly what you'd expect given the circumstances. Eckert signed as Acting Burgomaster, suggesting the substantive holder of that office was either absent, detained, or otherwise unavailable during the occupation period.