Banknote Billet Seine-Maritime 2 francs 1917

Remarks:

Quelques traces d'usure.

This 2-franc necessity note was issued in 1917 by the Caisse Communale de Change of the town of Bolbec, a municipality located in Seine-Maritime, in the Normandy region.

Necessity notes are substitute monetary instruments that were put into circulation during World War I, a period during which the shortage of metal coinage forced many municipalities, chambers of commerce and various establishments to issue their own local means of payment. These local issues were intended to compensate for the lack of currency in circulation and to facilitate commercial exchanges at the municipal level.

Bolbec, an industrial and textile town in the Commerce valley in Seine-Maritime, was one of the many French municipalities to resort to this type of emergency fiduciary issue. The Caisse Communale de Change was the official issuing body of the municipality, giving this note a recognised local institutional character.

This note has a face value of 2 francs, making it an intermediate denomination suited to everyday transactions of the time. It is part of a series of necessity issues whose values generally varied to cover the needs of the daily exchanges of the inhabitants.

From a philatelic and numismatic point of view, these necessity notes represent direct historical testimonies of the economic hardships experienced by France during the world conflict. Their documentary interest is considerable, as they reflect the local economic organisation of an era marked by exceptional constraints. The weight of this note is 1 gram, a characteristic consistent with the lightweight paper media typically used for this type of temporary monetary issue during this period.