50 Centimes Chambers of Commerce

France's Chambers of Commerce stepped in as emergency issuers after World War I left the country's small-denomination coinage in chaos — hoarding and metal shortages had stripped circulation of anything useful below one franc. These aluminium bronze pieces were a stopgap measure authorized at the regional level, not a national mint decision, which is why the issuing authority is collective rather than sovereign. Production ran across the full decade as the Banque de France repeatedly failed to restore adequate fractional coinage in time.