Banknote France 1 Franc - Chambers of Commerce of Caen and Honfleur - 1915-1920 - Serial A - 2nd printing

Remarks:

épinglages, plis, salissures

This 1 franc note was jointly issued by the Chambers of Commerce of Caen and Honfleur, two major economic institutions of the Calvados department in Normandy. It was issued in the particular context of World War I, a period during which the shortage of metallic currency led many French chambers of commerce to issue their own emergency notes in order to compensate for the lack of currency in circulation.

This issue corresponds to the second issue produced by these two chambers, covering a period from 1915 to 1920. The note belongs to series A, which is an important classification element for collectors and researchers specialising in French emergency currency.

These chamber of commerce notes, also known as emergency notes or war money, represent a numismatic category in their own right, bearing witness to the local economic solutions adopted in times of crisis. The association of two chambers of commerce for a joint issue, as is the case here between Caen and Honfleur, reflects a concerted regional organisation to meet the monetary needs of the Norman population of the time.

The note has a face value of 1 franc. The longevity of this issue, spanning several years until 1920, testifies to the prolonged monetary difficulties that followed the conflict, well beyond the armistice of 1918. These local notes thus continued to circulate during the post-war economic reconstruction period, before being gradually withdrawn from circulation with the return to a normalised national monetary situation.