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1/2 Franc Series C
| Issuer | Korçë, Municipality of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Green geometric guilloche underprint covers the entire field, over which a large brown intaglio double-headed eagle with spread wings is centred as the principal vignette. Denomination numerals '1/2 fr' appear in brown within circular cartouches at left and right. Bilingual text in French and Albanian is arranged in two columns flanking the eagle, with signature lines below for the Directeur des Finances (left) and the Président du Conseil (right). The date and series letter with serial number are printed in the lower portion, with the engraver's and printer's credits along the bottom margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in green on plain paper stock. A dense geometric underprint of repeated '50' numerals interspersed with chevron and wave patterns fills the entire field. At centre, the denomination is stated in large letterpress text on three lines in French and Albanian, with the fraction '1/2' between them. Small concentric-circle rosette devices mark each corner of the inner border. The printer's and engraver's credits appear in mirror-reversed text along the bottom margin. |
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| Comments |
Korçë's municipal fractional notes are among the most unusual local issues to emerge from the First World War. The town was occupied by French forces from late 1916 and administered as a quasi-autonomous zone — the "Republic of Korçë" in common usage, though never formally constituted as such. The municipal authority issued its own currency partly because French military scrip was inadequate for small transactions and Ottoman coinage had effectively vanished from circulation.
Printed locally by A. A. Vangheli, this is a genuinely provincial production — not a note sent abroad to a commercial security printer and returned. Davier's engraving credit is unusual for a wartime municipal issue of this type.