Gournay-en-Bray's commercial union token belongs to the wave of private necessity coinage that swept provincial France during and immediately after World War I, when the government's requisitioning of copper and nickel for munitions left ordinary retail transactions without adequate small change. Local chambers of commerce and merchants' associations filled the gap themselves, issuing aluminium tokens that circulated by mutual agreement within their towns. Gournay-en-Bray, a small Norman market town built on its cheese trade, was typical of dozens of such communities that organized their own monetary stopgap rather than wait for Paris to act.
Gournay-en-Bray's commercial union token belongs to the wave of private necessity coinage that swept provincial France during and immediately after World War I, when the government's requisitioning of copper and nickel for munitions left ordinary retail transactions without adequate small change. Local chambers of commerce and merchants' associations filled the gap themselves, issuing aluminium tokens that circulated by mutual agreement within their towns. Gournay-en-Bray, a small Norman market town built on its cheese trade, was typical of dozens of such communities that organized their own monetary stopgap rather than wait for Paris to act.