Emergency Money - B 1914 - 1920 - 01 Belgium - Bruges 1

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.
When you read you begin with A, B, C, when you sing you begin with do, re, mi, ...
and when you talk about banknotes... you start with what you have.

Since I was born in Belgium, in the beautiful city of Bruges (yes from the movie "In Bruges"), I start my articles on Emergency Currency in that city.

Map of Belgium - Bruges in the North West

Belgium has now 10 provinces, (9 during the 1st WW) and Bruges is the capital city of West-Flanders. It is now the world most visited place, compared to the number of its citizens. For each citizen, there are 15 (!) tourists.

Just in case you wonder why Bruges is so popular...

As Bruges is a larger city in Belgium, a lot of people - also in 1914 - were living in the city or were related to the city. A lot of people from the surrounding areas were also depending on the welfare of the supporting organisations in Bruges.

3 Organisations and the city board of Bruges, issued emergency money in 1914.
1) National Committee for aid and nutrition - through a local committee in Bruges
2) Support of the distressed - through a local committee in Bruges
3) Support of the distressed - through helping the unemployed
4) city board of Bruges

The first 3 committees, emitted only values replacing coins (up to 1 franc) - the city board issued two centimes notes (5 and 25) - and 6 franc notes (1 - 2 - 5 - 20 - 50 and 100).
The higher values were not used as 'support for those who needed', but were also used as payments for staff, military, ...

In general we can say that the smaller the city, the more valuable the notes are.
High value notes are less used, so they hit higher prices in the catalogues too.
And finally the quality of the notes (as they are 100 years old) will be of influence of the value too.

Distribution of 'Notgeld' to families

more to follow ...