1000 Francs CFA Saint John Paul II Death

John Paul II died in April 2005, and the decade that followed saw an extraordinary volume of commemorative coinage issued across multiple jurisdictions — many bearing little administrative connection to the Vatican or to Poland. Burkina Faso, as a CFA franc zone member, has issued numerous collector coins through licensed arrangements with European minting agencies, the actual production typically handled by facilities in Poland, Austria, or the Czech Republic rather than anywhere near Ouagadougou.

He was canonized in April 2014, roughly a year before this coin's issue date.