See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration! or register with email

Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!

1000 Francs CFA Sailing Ship - Preussen

Issuer Benin (1975-date)
Year 1993
Type Non-circulating coin
Value Log in to see details
Currency Log in to see details
Composition Log in to see details
Weight Log in to see details
Diameter Log in to see details
Thickness Log in to see details
Shape Log in to see details
Technique Log in to see details
Orientation Log in to see details
Engraver(s) Log in to see details
In circulation to Log in to see details
Reference(s) Log in to see details
Obverse description Log in to see details
Obverse script Log in to see details
Obverse lettering REPUBLIQUE DU BENIN FRATERNITE JUSTICE TRAVAIL 1 000 FRANCS CFA
Reverse description Log in to see details
Reverse script Log in to see details
Reverse lettering Log in to see details
Edge Reeded
Mint Log in to see details
Mintage Log in to see details
Additional information

Benin's early commemorative program in the 1990s was largely contract work, produced for the collector market through European minting houses with no meaningful domestic distribution. This piece honors the Preussen, the only five-masted square-rigged sailing ship ever built, launched in 1902 by the German firm Rickmers for the nitrate trade between Hamburg and Chile. She was deliberately designed without an engine — her owners bet on sail efficiency at scale, and for several years the gamble paid off.

The Preussen sank in 1910 after a collision with a cross-channel steamer near Dover. She was never salvaged.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE