25 Francs

The Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale held a monopoly on note issue across French West Africa from its founding in 1901, but the immediate postwar period created genuine shortages of small-denomination paper — this 25 Francs issue belongs to that emergency response, produced as fractional currency demand outpaced supply from the metropolitan treasury.

Pierre Bellery-Desfontaines was a prolific Belle Époque illustrator whose commercial work leaned heavily toward allegory; Georges Duval was among the more technically accomplished intaglio engravers working in Paris at the time. The combination was unusual for a colonial bank note of this denomination. The Florian firm, father-and-son printers based in France, handled relatively small runs for specialized financial clients — their output rarely appears in major auction records, which partly explains the Pick unlisted status.