Banknote Billet Algérie - Administration française 1 franc 1914

Remarks:

Plis

This emergency banknote with a face value of 1 franc was issued by the Algiers Chamber of Commerce on 3 September 1914, just a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. It belongs to series 682.

Its issuance took place in the context of a widespread monetary crisis that affected all French territories and their administrations from the summer of 1914 onwards. Faced with the massive hoarding of metal coins and the shortage of small change, the chambers of commerce of many French cities and territories under French administration, including Algiers, were authorised to issue their own emergency notes to offset the lack of currency in circulation.

This note is representative of a pivotal period in the monetary history of Algeria under French administration, during which local economic institutions had to make up for the shortcomings of the central monetary system. The Algiers Chamber of Commerce, as a representative institution of trade and industry in the region, temporarily assumed a quasi-banking role by guaranteeing the value of these notes to merchants and private individuals.

These emergency notes issued by Algerian chambers of commerce are today direct witnesses to the economic hardships caused by the 1914 mobilisation and are highly sought-after collectibles among numismatists specialising in wartime currency or in the monetary history of North Africa under French influence.