1000 Francs

Afrique Française Libre was not a territory but a declaration — the Free French monetary authority established after de Gaulle's 1940 appeal, issuing currency to sustain the African colonies that had broken with Vichy. This 1000 Francs note, printed by Bradbury Wilkinson in London, was part of that effort to give the Free French administration a functioning financial instrument in the territories it controlled, chiefly French Equatorial Africa and Cameroon.

Bradbury Wilkinson had no previous relationship with French colonial currency work — the contract was a wartime expedient. The series is scarce in any grade; production volumes were modest and the political circumstances meant distribution was uneven at best.