5 Centimes

Belgian municipal emergency money — noodgeld — proliferated during the German occupation of World War One, as coin metal was requisitioned and the occupying authorities restricted normal currency flows. Lier, a small Flemish town southeast of Antwerp, was among dozens of municipalities forced to print their own fractional scrip simply to keep local commerce functioning. The occupation administration tolerated these issues provided they stayed hyper-local and were theoretically redeemable after the war.

Poortman of Machelen handled both design and printing — a modest provincial operation, not one of the established security printers, which shows in the utilitarian execution typical of this entire category of Belgian municipal issues.