1000 Francs Rothschild Prayerbook

The "Rothschild Prayerbook" takes its name from a celebrated illuminated manuscript produced in Flanders around 1505–1510, commissioned for wealthy Flemish patrons and later acquired by the Rothschild banking family in the nineteenth century. It eventually passed through auction at Christie's London in 1999, where it sold for £8.5 million — then a record for any manuscript at auction. The BEAC's decision to reference it on a commemorative issue is purely commercial: the Central African franc zone has no historical or cultural connection to the manuscript whatsoever.

These rectangular-format silver pieces were struck for the collector market, not circulation, under licensing arrangements common to BEAC's modern numismatic program.