1000 Francs CFA Sailing Ship - Preussen

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.