50 Centimes Chambre de commerce

Djibouti's Chambre de Commerce began issuing its own token coinage in 1920 precisely because the French colonial monetary supply was chronically inadequate for small retail transactions — French Somaliland had no local mint and depended entirely on imported specie that rarely filtered down to low-denomination circulation. These chamber issues filled that gap as a matter of commercial necessity, not official policy.

The nickel-zinc alloy reflects wartime and postwar metal constraints that continued shaping small-denomination coinage well into the early 1920s.