50 Centimes - Chambre de Commerce de Villefranche-sur-Saône 69

Villefranche-sur-Saône's Chamber of Commerce began issuing small-denomination emergency paper in 1915 as the wartime coin shortage bit hard across provincial France. The hoarding of metal coinage — driven by both public anxiety and the government's own metal requisitions — left local commerce effectively paralyzed at the centime level, and chambers of commerce across the country stepped in where the Banque de France would not.

X. Perroux & Fils of Mâcon were a regional printing house responsible for several similar issues from Burgundy and the Rhône valley during this period. The watermarked paper was a meaningful precaution for a denomination this small.