Sunday, August 14, 2016

Emergency Money - B 1914 - 1920 - 01 Belgium - Bruges 3

When Belgium - and Europe - was at the dawn of war in 1914, a rush on metal cash and paper money was inevitable. National institutions already knew what was going to happen, and only limited amounts of money could be redrawn from the bank.
Meanwhile a large amount of the remaining stock of banknotes, as well as the printing plates were removed from the National Bank in Brussels, first to Antwerp, and later out of the country to the Bank of London.
Some of the notes, printed in Antwerp, are quite rare - but that's another topic.

Due to this lack of papermoney, and the need to pay out millions of people in Belgium, several cities started locally to emit notes.
In my previous posts I wrote about the smaller denominations issued in Bruges, now we'll have a closer look at the 'franc values'.
Front side of 1 frank Bruges 1914
Back side of 1 frank Bruges 1914
Two 1 Frank-notes were issued in 1914. Both notes have a different 'experiation day', the day they could be exchanged for 'real' money.
On the first note it is January 15, 1915 - on the second issue, the dte is July 15, 1915.
refunable January 15, 1915

refundable July 15, 1915
Once exchanged, the notes were perforated with a starshaped perforation.
star perforation
Both 1 Frank notes were issued in the same colours. Depending on the quality, they have a catalogue value of € 15 to € 50.
Both notes were issued by the city of Bruges, and were refunable at the city as well.

More notes to follow...



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