Banknote Billet France 1 franc 1915

Remarks:

1 épinglage et plis

Écriture précisant la ville, sans date et sans signature

This 1 franc note was issued in 1915 by the Papeteries de Lancey, an iconic industrial company from the Grenoble region, founded and developed by Aristide Bergès, a French engineer and industrialist renowned for his pioneering role in the exploitation of white coal (hydroelectric power). This type of note belongs to the category of emergency currency, issued during the First World War in response to the shortage of metallic coinage that was affecting France at the time.

Faced with the dwindling supply of coins in circulation due to the economic pressures of the conflict, many French companies, chambers of commerce and local authorities took the initiative of issuing their own fiduciary notes for local use. The Papeteries de Lancey, located in the Grésivaudan valley in Isère, were no exception and produced these notes to facilitate commercial transactions within their immediate economic environment.

The note bears serial number 1234, which serves as a precise identification element allowing each copy to be distinguished within the issue series. This type of individual numbering was common for such private issues, ensuring a degree of control over the quantity of currency put into circulation.

The paper medium, a raw material naturally mastered by a company specialising in paper manufacturing, gives this note a notable distinction: the Papeteries de Lancey had the technical capacity in-house to produce this type of document. This note thus bears witness to a particularly troubled economic and historical period, during which local ingenuity made up for the shortcomings of the national monetary system. Today it represents a collector's item directly linked to the industrial and monetary history of France during the Great War.