5 Centimes Berchem - Antwerpen

Berchem was an independent municipality south of Antwerp until its absorption into the city in 1983, and during the German occupation of World War I it was one of hundreds of Belgian communes forced to issue their own small-denomination emergency paper when coin metal vanished from circulation almost overnight. The Plaatselijk Komiteit — a local relief and administrative committee — stepped in to fill the gap, contracting the local printer J. Coore rather than the larger Antwerp houses.

Hyper-local production like this makes condition survival rates erratic. Small-town print runs were rarely precise, paper quality was whatever was available, and few recipients thought to preserve them.