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20 Francs - Emile Gentil
| Issuer | Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer |
|---|---|
| Year | 1947 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Brown on multicolour underprint. To the right, an intaglio portrait vignette of explorer Émile Gentil is set against a riverside village scene with figures to the left. The territorial overprint GUYANE appears in the margins, identifying this as the French Guiana issue of the French Equatorial Africa base note, with the engraver's and designer's credits reading P. MUNIER FEC. and BROUTIN SC. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Multicolour. The central vignette presents two African warriors in traditional attire, rendered in intaglio. The territorial overprint GUYANE is applied to the margins to designate this as the French Guiana issue, with the engraver's credit MAGD. TISON SC. and designer's credit P. MUNIER FEC. appearing in the lower margin. |
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| Comments |
The Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer was established in 1944 specifically to handle currency for French overseas territories liberated from Vichy-aligned monetary arrangements — this 20 Francs note is part of that postwar restructuring effort rather than a product of any single colonial administration. The series circulated across multiple territories simultaneously, which makes precise attribution of individual surviving notes to a specific region essentially impossible.
Émile Gentil was a French colonial administrator best known for leading the mission that captured Rabah Zobeir and consolidated French control over the Lake Chad basin in 1900. Broutin's engraving work for the Banque de France during this period was meticulous — his intaglio technique is consistently the strongest element in notes of this series.