50 Centimes - Chambre de Commerce de Bordeaux 33

French Chambers of Commerce were authorized to issue emergency small-denomination notes from 1914 onward precisely because the war had driven metallic coinage out of circulation almost entirely — hoarding and industrial demand for copper and nickel left the public with almost no fractional currency. Bordeaux's Chamber was among the earliest and most prolific of these issuers, producing notes through multiple series across the war years.

B. Arnaud, based in Villeurbanne on the outskirts of Lyon, handled a significant share of this provincial emergency paper. The JP#30 reference covers at least three distinct varieties for this denomination, differentiated typically by minor typographic or watermark variations rather than substantive redesign.