1000 Francs CFA Alfred Brehm

Alfred Brehm was a 19th-century German zoologist whose multivolume work Brehms Tierleben became the definitive popular natural history encyclopedia in the German-speaking world — influential enough that his name remained attached to wildlife illustration and zoological education well into the 20th century. Benin issued a series of silver commemoratives in the early 2000s under the CFA franc framework, licensing culturally adjacent European subjects as collectibles aimed entirely at the international numismatic market rather than domestic circulation.

Benin had no mint of its own; these pieces were struck by contracted European mints on behalf of the issuing authority.