50 Centimes Purple

Constantine's Chamber of Commerce issued this note as an emergency response to the acute small-change shortage that gripped French Algeria after the First World War. Metropolitan France had effectively drained the colonies of coin, and local commercial chambers across Algeria were authorized to fill the gap with their own paper fractional currency — a practical solution that produced a patchwork of competing local issues across the territory in 1919 and 1920.

Imprimerie Adolphe Jourdan was the dominant commercial printer in Algiers throughout this period, handling a significant share of these chambre de commerce emissions. The Constantine series is among the more modestly produced — Jourdan's work here is functional rather than elaborate.