50 Centimes

During the German occupation of Belgium, the destruction of Dendermonde in September 1914 — one of the most thorough razing of any Belgian town in the early weeks of the war — left local commerce without functional small change. The National Aid and Food Committees, established under the broader framework of the Comité National de Secours et d'Alimentation, were authorized to fill that gap locally, and dozens of communes issued their own emergency paper in denominations too small for the occupying authorities to bother suppressing.

The printer, A. Du Caju-Beeckman, was a Dendermonde firm — remarkable given how little of the town was left standing when these notes were needed most.