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...

Emergency money - A Introducion 02

There is so much to say about Emergency Money - and in extention about replacement coupons - that a bit of a guidline might be useful.

To make a difference with 'banknotes', let's state that banknotes are issued by the National Bank of a country (or a group of countries), notes that are issued by the National Mint of a certain country, or by a government ruling a certain area on a certain moment.
In this set of articles on Emergency (and replacement money), we talk about notes/coins and coupons that are issued by private organisations, non-profit organisations, cities, towns, ... in order
a) to replace coins or notes because there's a shortage of official coins/notes

b) to support the poorest - victims of war, to enable them to buy specific goods (coupons)
c) to replace national currency because of heavy inflation
d) to replace national currency to avoid national currency leaving the country (tourist currency)

e) to replace national currency to give a number of people access to other products (like for military, foreigners, ....)

f) to pay employees in a way that they were forced to use their 'money' to spend in shops owned by the company that issued the 'money' - Nazi concentration camp 'money' is a similar type of money.

I might have forgotten some categories, but at least we're more or less clear about the difference with bank notes.

Not in this category are the French, British, Russian 'assignats' - although they were replacing silver and gold coins as well. They were a stage between the use of gold/silver towards the use of banknotes as a general way of making payments.
Besides that, they are in all 'banknote' catalogues, so they can be considered as 'banknotes'.

Tokens issued on fancy fair, casinos and in certain theme parks (Disneyland) are other types of 'replacement money' and are left out of this list too.

In what follows, I will try to pay attention to the following themes :

A (was introduction)
B : for Emergency Money issued at the beginning of WWI
C : "Grossgeld" - emergency money for higher values than the usual circulation coins
D : "Serienscheine" - the 'fancy' Notgeld issues of (mainly) Germany in the 1920's
E : Inflation money
F : Inflation-proof money
G : Military money - Prisoners money - War Occupation money
H : Coupons other then the WWI coupons
I : Tourist money


check previous items and more to follow ....
contributions are welcome

Emergency money - A Introducion 01

From the beginning of the first world war, a shortage of metals forced a lot of countries to redraw their coins out of circulation. Silver coins were too valuable but also other metals were needed for war industry.

To cope with the demand of small denominations, lots of cities started to issue paper notes to replace the needed coins - some coins were issued in zinc or other cheap metals, and even other material was used, linen, silk or velvet, porcelain, leather, ... you name it.
This happened in many countries, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria ...

This 'emergency money' was roughly issued beween the beginning of the first World War, till the beginning of the second World War.

The first issues, in Belgium, France, ... were issued by different authorities, cities, non-profit organisations, employment offices, social organisations, ... in order to supply funds for the people suffering from the economical situation during the first world war.
This means that the issued notes were not only as a replacement for real 'money', sometimes they were also coupons that could be exchanged for grain, bread, meat, fish, ...
In this vieuw, we can add a whole category or chinese food coupons to this already elaborate theme.
And China is/was not the only country issuing food coupons.

Many of later notes (especially in Germany) became very fashionable and were issued for reasons beyond the need of real 'money'. They can be considered in a way as cinderellas.
These notes are known as 'Serien Scheine" - some special series, issued by a number of cities are know as "Reutergeld".

Later issues (for example in the 90's of previous century) were issued mainly to fight inflation in areas that suffered from war, like Bosnia Hezegovina. Here we find mostly paper notes.

In order not to make this introduction too complicated, I will leave it here.
There are thousands and thousands of different notes and coins.
Hopefully i'll find a way to make it understandable for you all....

(contributions are welcome!)
to be continued...