1000 Francs CFA Iguanodon

Benin's 1990s silver program was frankly unusual — a small West African nation with no domestic minting infrastructure issuing collector pieces clearly aimed at the European and Japanese numismatic market. The Iguanodon issue was part of a broader prehistoric animal series licensed through intermediary distributors, a common arrangement for CFA-zone countries during this period where the issuing government received a flat fee while a European trading house handled production and sales.

Iguanodon itself has an odd taxonomic history — the genus was so broadly defined throughout the 19th century that dozens of unrelated species were dumped into it, most of which have since been reclassified.