50 Centimes Erpion

Erpion is a village in the province of Hainaut with a population that has never exceeded a few hundred. That a commune this small issued its own emergency currency is less surprising than it sounds — during the German occupation of Belgium in World War One, the near-total collapse of small-denomination coinage forced thousands of municipalities, even the most obscure, to print their own necessity notes. Tickets Meurice in Brussels supplied a considerable number of these communal issues, often working from simple stock formats.

The 69 × 50 mm format is characteristic of the smaller-value Meurice prints, cut tight to save paper.