100 Francs

The Banque de la Nouvelle-Calédonie was established in 1874 as one of the colonial banks created under French imperial banking legislation, with a note-issuing privilege tied directly to the territory's developing settler economy and penal colony administration. That dual economic reality — free colonists, transported convicts, and a nascent nickel sector not yet dominant — shaped the modest circulation demands the bank actually faced in its early years.

Charles-Jules Robert and Charles Wullschleger were both accomplished engravers working in the French tradition, though the division of labor between obverse and reverse engravers on a single colonial issue of this date is worth remarking — it suggests the plates were not a single commission but assembled from separate workshop contracts.

Pick 4 is among the earliest surviving issues from this issuer, and the 1874 date places it at the bank's founding year itself.