50 Centimes - Bon de cantine

Bons de cantine were internal scrip issued by French prisoner-of-war camp canteens during the First World War, intended to prevent German captives from accumulating French currency — and to give camp administrators control over what inmates could purchase. The system was explicitly sanctioned under the Hague Convention's provisions on prisoner labor and maintenance, though implementation varied wildly between individual dépôts.

The issuing authority here — a generic dépôt de prisonniers de guerre rather than a named facility — reflects how decentralized the French system was. Dozens of camps produced their own scrip with no standardized design or printing contract, which is why these pieces differ so substantially in material and execution from one dépôt to the next. The green cardboard substrate was a practical choice: harder to counterfeit with available materials than plain paper, and visually distinct from official currency.

Survival rates are uneven and largely accidental — most were redeemed, discarded, or destroyed at the armistice.