10 Centimes

Sivry is a small commune in Hainaut, and like hundreds of Belgian municipalities it resorted to printing its own emergency fractional notes during the German occupation of World War I. The national banking system had effectively seized up, and coins had vanished into hoarding and metal requisitions almost immediately after August 1914. Local authorities were left to fill the gap themselves.

Imprimerie Libert in Mons was a workhorse printer for this kind of municipal necessity — the firm turned out necessity notes for multiple Hainaut communes during the occupation years.