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20 Francs - Emile Gentil
| Issuer | Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer |
|---|---|
| Year | 1947-1949 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Multicolour intaglio print on a note overprinted 'MARTINIQUE' in the margins, adapted from the French Equatorial Africa P#22 issue. A vignette to the right carries a portrait of explorer Émile Gentil, while the left side presents a village scene with figures. The legends 'VINGT FRANCS' and 'CAISSE CENTRALE DE LA FRANCE D'OUTRE-MER' appear alongside engraver and designer credits. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Multicolour intaglio print on a note overprinted 'MARTINIQUE' in the margins, adapted from the French Equatorial Africa P#22 issue. The central vignette presents two African warriors in traditional attire. The issuing authority legend and engraver credit are printed in the lower margin. |
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| Comments |
The Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer was established in 1944 specifically to manage currency across French colonial territories, replacing a patchwork of local issuing bodies. This 20 Francs note circulated across French Equatorial Africa and French Cameroon under a unified monetary framework that persisted until individual territories began asserting their own institutions in the late 1950s.
Émile Gentil was a French colonial administrator who led the expedition that defeated Rabih az-Zubayr at the Battle of Kousséri in 1900, securing French control over the Chad basin. His naming on a banknote decades after his death reflects how deeply the Third and Fourth Republics embedded their imperial figures into everyday transactional objects.
Broutin and Tison were both Banque de France engravers working in an established intaglio tradition that gave these colonial issues a technical quality far exceeding what the territories' own economies would have demanded.