10 Francs

The Trésor Colonial issues for Martinique occupied an awkward administrative space — they were not central bank notes but colonial treasury instruments, produced to fill the gap left by the chronic shortage of small-denomination specie on the island. The 1884 date places this squarely in the period before the Banque de la Martinique was granted its note-issuing concession, when the colonial treasury handled emergency liquidity directly.

Pick 5 is genuinely rare in any condition. The combination of tropical humidity, heavy hand-to-hand use in a small island economy, and the near-total absence of surviving archive stocks means attrition was severe.