2016-12-27 Tue

This 10 French francs Miner "Mineur" banknote was introduced during the German occupancy of France during World War II. Introduced on September 11th, 1941 these notes were put into circulation from November 11, 1943, by the Bank of France.

This brown and grey bank replaced the previous 10 francs “Minerva” banknotes. The obverse has a portrait of a miner in a helmet with an axe on his shoulder and the reverse has a portrait of a peasant mother holding a small child in one hand and a hoe in the other hand. Both the obverse and the reverse portray a rural landscape in the background.

This note goes away from the traditions of featuring famous personalities on them and instead tries to capture the common businesses and regional landscapes! This note has a watermark of Jeanne d'Arc - Joan of Arc in helmet and the dimensions of this note are 118 mm x 75 mm.

It was painted in polychrome by a specialist in iconography mining Lucien Jonas, and engraved by Camille Beltran and Ernest Pierre Deloche.