50 Centimes - Chambre de Commerce de Lons-le-Saunier 39C

Lons-le-Saunier is the prefecture of the Jura department, and like hundreds of French chambres de commerce, it issued its own small-denomination emergency currency during and after the First World War to compensate for the chronic shortage of metallic coinage. The Banque de France had effectively stopped circulating bronze and nickel pieces — hoarding and wartime metal demand had seen to that — leaving local commerce to fend for itself through a patchwork of regional paper issues.

Papeterie Universelle, the Lyon-based printer responsible for this note, produced a significant volume of these provincial emergency issues across the Rhône-Alpes region. The watermark security feature is modest but present, distinguishing the series from the more rudimentary typographic issues produced by smaller local printers.