Banknote Billet France 1 franc 1922

Remarks:

Pliure, salissure

This 1 franc note was issued by the Chambre de Commerce d'Évreux in 1922, pursuant to the resolution of 27 July 1922. It fits within the context of French local monetary issues of the interwar period, during which many chambers of commerce were authorised to issue their own fiduciary currency to offset the shortages of metallic coinage that persisted after the First World War.

The Chambre de Commerce d'Évreux, the representative institution of trade and industry in the Eure department, thus exercised a temporary monetary prerogative that allowed it to put emergency notes into local circulation. These issues were strictly governed by an official resolution, whose date of 27 July 1922 appears explicitly on the note, lending this document a certain historical and administrative significance.

This type of emergency note, also known as local paper currency or a chamber of commerce note, stands today as a direct testimony to the substitute monetary practices that characterised the French economy during the 1920s. France is the country of issue, and the monetary unit used is the franc, the official currency in use at the time.

The face value of 1 franc made it a denomination commonly used in everyday commercial transactions in the Évreux region. These local notes gradually ceased to circulate as the national monetary situation stabilised, which contributes to making them sought-after documentary pieces in the field of notaphily, the branch of numismatics devoted to the study and collection of banknotes.