50 Centimes Saint Brieuc

During the First World War, the French military established prisoner-of-war depot camps across its ten administrative military regions, and each was left to improvise its own internal currency for canteen and camp transactions. The 10th Region depot at Saint-Brieuc, in Brittany, was among those that produced fractional notes to manage small-denomination exchange entirely within the wire. These were not issued by any banking authority — the issuer was the camp administration itself.

Camp scrip of this type was printed in very limited quantities, used hard, and rarely preserved. Survivors almost invariably show heavy wear or damage from daily handling in confined conditions.