100 Francs

The Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale was a private colonial institution — chartered in Paris, not a state central bank — with authority to issue currency across French West Africa. This note falls within the postwar transition period when France was restructuring colonial monetary arrangements, eventually superseded by the creation of the Institut d'Émission de l'AOF et du Togo in 1955.

Auguste Chapon was one of the Banque de France's most accomplished intaglio engravers of the mid-twentieth century. Beltrand came from a distinguished family of engravers; his grandfather Jacques was among the finest wood engravers of the nineteenth century.