50 Centimes - Le Mans

French prisoner-of-war camp scrip occupies a peculiar corner of notaphily — issued not by a bank or treasury but by a military administrative body managing enemy combatants on French soil. The 4e Région designation places this camp within the Loire military district; Le Mans, well inland, was used as a holding and transit point for German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners from the earliest weeks of the war. Blanchet was a local commercial printer, not a security press, which shows in the simplicity of the output.

These notes were legal tender only within the wire — prisoners received scrip in lieu of wages for labor details, redeemable at the camp canteen.