50 Centimes - Chambre de Commerce d'Elbeuf 76

Elbeuf, a Seine-Maritime textile town, was among dozens of French provincial chambers of commerce authorized to issue emergency small change during and after the First World War, when metal coinage had effectively vanished from circulation. The central government's tolerance for this proliferation of local paper was pragmatic — by 1920 there were well over a thousand distinct chamber issues circulating across France, and Elbeuf's were among the more modest in ambition and production run.

JP#55-15/16 distinguishes two varieties, almost certainly differentiated by watermark type or paper stock rather than any visible design change — a distinction that catches out collectors who assume a single acquisition covers both Pick numbers.