50 Centimes - Chambre de Commerce de Châteauroux 36

Châteauroux's chamber of commerce began issuing emergency fractional notes in 1916 as the wartime metal shortage stripped small change from everyday commerce across France. The Banque de France had effectively abandoned the centime in circulation, and local bodies — chambers of commerce, municipalities, cooperatives — stepped in to fill the gap under a framework tacitly permitted by the Treasury. Badel was a local press, not a specialist security printer, and that shows in the relatively modest production values compared to notes printed in Paris or Lyon for larger commercial bodies.

The JP#46 series ran across multiple reference numbers with minor typographic and watermark variants, which is why this note appears under three Pick sub-references.