1 Franc

The Chambres de Commerce emergency notes issued across French Algeria during and after World War One filled a genuine void — the metropolitan franc coinage had been hoarded or melted, and the Banque de l'Algérie couldn't paper over the gap fast enough. Constantine's chamber was among the more prolific local issuers, and the Lefert press was a local establishment, not a specialist security printer. That matters: production quality and anti-counterfeiting measures were modest by any standard.

By 1921, the acute shortage that originally justified these issues had largely passed, making late-dated examples like this one less a crisis instrument than a transitional holdover pending formal recall.