100 Francs Una and the Lion

The "Una and the Lion" design originates with William Wyon's celebrated 1839 pattern for the young Queen Victoria — a piece never intended for circulation and struck in extremely limited numbers for presentation purposes. BEAC's adoption of it nearly two centuries later for a Central African issue is a purely commercial decision, part of a broader wave of bullion and collector miniatures marketed to European buyers with no particular connection to the issuing authority's monetary history.