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20 Francs - Emile Gentil
| Issuer | Institut d'Émission de l'Afrique Équatoriale Française et du Cameroun |
|---|---|
| Year | 1957 |
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| Printer | Banque de France, France |
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| Obverse description | Brown intaglio on multicolour underprint, with an engraved portrait of explorer Émile Gentil in military uniform and peaked cap at right, flanked by a central vignette of an African village scene with figures engaged in daily activities before thatched huts and a mountainous background. Geometric guilloche panels frame the composition at left and right, with the denomination numeral '20' repeated in each corner. Two manuscript facsimile signatures appear in the centre field for Le Président and Le Directeur Général, with the designer and engraver credits lettered below. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | VINGT FRANCS ÉMILE. GENTIL INSTITUT D'ÉMISSION DE L'AFRIQUE ÉQUATORIALE FRANÇAISE ET DU CAMEROUN LE PRÉSIDENT, LE DIRECTEUR GÉNÉRAL, P. MUNIER FEC. BROUTIN SC. (Translation: Twenty Francs / Emile Gentil / Emission Institute of French Equatorial Africa and Cameroon / The President / The Director General) |
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| Comments |
The Institut d'Émission de l'Afrique Équatoriale Française et du Cameroun was itself a transitional institution — created in 1955 to manage currency across French Equatorial Africa and Cameroun as decolonization became politically inevitable. This note was issued just a year before the CFA franc zone began fragmenting into separate national authorities. Emile Gentil, the name on the series, was the French colonial administrator who secured French control over Chad in the 1890s and oversaw the brutal rubber concession regime that devastated the Congo basin — an uncomfortable honorific by any later standard.
Broutin and Tison were both staff engravers at the Banque de France's Établissement de fabrication des monnaies et médailles workshops in Paris.