50 Centimes - Chambre de Commerce d'Auxerre [89]

The Auxerre chamber of commerce began issuing these small-denomination notes during the First World War, when the withdrawal of metallic coinage from circulation created an acute shortage of small change across provincial France. Chambers of commerce across the country were authorized to fill the gap, and many — Auxerre among them — continued issuing well into the early 1920s, long after the armistice, because the coin shortage persisted.

B. Arnaud of Villeurbanne handled a large volume of French emergency currency for regional chambers during this period. The watermarked paper was a minimal but deliberate security measure against local counterfeiting.