10 000 Francs

Mali withdrew from the West African Monetary Union in 1962, briefly operating its own franc before a disastrous attempt at monetary independence forced a humiliating return to the CFA franc zone in 1984. This note belongs to the intervening period — the Malian franc years — when the Banque Centrale du Mali issued currency outside the BCEAO system entirely. The arrangement required printing contracts with outside suppliers, and the Banque de France obliged.

The series ran twelve years, an unusually long lifespan for a high-denomination note in a country experiencing chronic inflation and import difficulties throughout the 1970s.