Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
50 Centimes - Dépôt d'Alençon
| Issuer | Ministère de l'Intérieur |
|---|---|
| Year | 1915-1919 |
| Type | Vouchers |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Plain paper voucher with black letterpress text arranged in three lines, framed by a simple decorative border with corner ornaments. The denomination '50 centimes' appears in large bold type at centre, flanked above by the issuing authority and below by the depot designation. No vignette or guilloche underprint is present. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | MINISTÈRE DE L'INTÉRIEUR 50 centimes DÉPOT D'ALENÇON (Translation: Ministry of the Interior. Alençon depot.) |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
During World War One, the French Ministère de l'Intérieur authorized a network of local emergency emissions to counteract the acute small-change shortage that paralyzed everyday commerce after coin hoarding stripped the market clean. The Dépôt d'Alençon — a refugee and civilian internee facility in the Orne — issued these fractional notes as internal scrip, not as general-circulation currency. They were never intended to leave the depot's economy.
That geographical confinement is precisely why surviving examples are harder to trace than comparable municipal emissions from the same period.