50 Centimes - Chambre de Commerce de Dijon 21

French chambres de commerce were authorized to issue emergency small-denomination notes during and after the First World War to address a severe shortage of fractional coinage — silver and copper had been hoarded or melted, and the national treasury could not meet demand. The Dijon chamber's issues are among hundreds of such local series produced across France between roughly 1914 and the early 1920s, when the emergency authorization was finally wound down and surviving notes called in.

Gérin was the obvious local choice — a Dijon printer working on familiar ground. The watermark is a modest security measure for a note of this denomination, but not unusual for the series.