Catalog
10 Francs
| Issuer | Banque de Madagascar |
|---|---|
| Year | 1926-1953 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | At right, a vignette of a young woman holding a basket of fruits and cereals, with a Ravinala (traveller's tree) rising in the background; at left, ears of corn flank a circular watermark cartouche. The issuer's name and denomination appear in letterpress across the note. |
|---|---|
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| Protection description | Watermark visible in the circular cartouche area at left of obverse |
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| Comments |
The Banque de Madagascar was a private commercial institution granted note-issuing rights by the French colonial administration — not a central bank in the modern sense. Its notes circulated alongside those of the Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale in the broader French Indian Ocean territories, and the two institutions' jurisdictions overlapped awkwardly in the Comoros for years.
Imprimerie Chaix was better known as a printer of railway timetables and Belle Époque posters than banknotes, which places it in an unusual tier of French security printers. The long date range on P#36 reflects not a single unchanged printing but a series reissued across nearly three decades with minimal modification — a colonial issuer's preference for continuity over updating.