1500 Francs / 1 Africa Buffalo and Keeper Bird; IDAO coinage

IDAO — the Institut de Développement de l'Afrique de l'Ouest — was not a sovereign government but a development organization, and the coins it issued occupied a legally ambiguous space somewhere between fantasy coinage and genuine local exchange tokens. The X# reference prefix in Krause cataloging designates it accordingly: real metal, real distribution, no internationally recognized monetary authority behind it.

Whether these pieces saw any genuine circulation in West African markets or functioned primarily as collectibles remains contested among specialists.