1000 Francs CFA General Aviation GA-43

The GA-43 was a Swiss-built, American-designed passenger aircraft produced by General Aviation in the early 1930s — a short-lived program that resulted in only a handful of airframes before the company was absorbed into what became North American Aviation. Its appearance on a BCEAO commemorative issue places it in an eclectic series that the mint used to capture the collector market for aviation-themed silver coins, a category that boomed among thematic collectors in the early 2000s. The underlying monetary authority had no particular connection to the subject matter.