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 Vaillants
| Issuer | France |
|---|---|
| Year | |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| 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) | Frédéric-Antonin Breysse |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Blue letterpress print on white paper. A central cross vignette is flanked by a boy and a girl in traditional Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes costume with berets associated with Catholic scouting; left margin carries an Alpine landscape with church and mountains, right margin a coastal scene with boat and aircraft, and a lower vignette shows a train passing a factory. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | DEBOUT JEUNES DE FRANCE CINQUANTE VAILLANTS NOUS REFERONS UNE FRANCE PLUS BELLE F.A BREYSSE A COEUR VAILLANT RIEN D'IMPOSSIBLE LE SOURIRE TOUJOURS |
| 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 |
The Vaillants were a system of internal scrip issued by the Vichy-era youth labor organization Chantiers de la Jeunesse Française, established in 1940 as a compulsory substitute for military service after the armistice prohibited France from maintaining a full conscript army. Young men between twenty and twenty-two were enrolled and paid partly in these vouchers, redeemable only within the Chantiers' own canteens and shops — a deliberate mechanism to keep purchasing power inside the organization and reduce demands on the general supply chain.
Breysse was a Lyon-based sculptor and medallist, an unusual choice for banknote design work, and his involvement reflects the degree to which Vichy's cultural apparatus sought to give even utilitarian scrip a certain craft credibility.