Banknote Billet France 50 centimes 1915 - 1920

Remarks:

Plis

This 50 centime note was issued by the Aurillac Chamber of Commerce between 1915 and 1920, belonging to series C. It originates from the particular context of the First World War, a period during which the shortage of metallic currency led many French chambers of commerce to issue their own emergency banknotes to compensate for the lack of money in circulation.

The Aurillac Chamber of Commerce, a representative institution of trade and industry in the Cantal department, thus temporarily fulfilled a local monetary function by producing these low-value notes intended for everyday transactions. These local issues, supervised by the relevant authorities, helped maintain economic exchanges during a period of severe national monetary tension.

This type of emergency banknote holds considerable historical interest, bearing witness to the economic and administrative adaptations put in place during this troubled period. Notes issued by French chambers of commerce between 1914 and the 1920s now constitute a distinct category in the field of notaphily, the specialised collecting of banknotes and emergency currency.

The note displays a face value of 50 centimes, making it a low-denomination note intended for small everyday transactions. Its weight is 1 gram, characteristic of the paper media used for this type of issue. The reference to series C allows this note to be precisely identified within the various series produced by the Aurillac Chamber of Commerce, thus facilitating its classification and identification by collectors and historians specialising in French regional numismatics.