10 Francs - Colbert

The Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer was established in 1944 to manage currency across French overseas territories, replacing the earlier colonial treasury arrangements that had broken down under the Occupation. This note circulated across a remarkably broad monetary zone — the same P#23 type was valid tender in territories spanning the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific simultaneously, a logistical peculiarity that made counterdenomination accounting genuinely complicated for local administrators.

Hourriez and Chapon were both senior Banque de France engravers working during the postwar period when the institution was producing currency for much of Francophone Africa and the overseas departments. The ten-franc denomination was effectively small change within a decade — inflation across the franc zone rendered low-value notes increasingly ceremonial before the series was retired.