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25 Francs
| Issuer | Banque de la Martinique |
|---|---|
| Year | 1943-1945 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 25 Francs |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio print on yellow guilloche underprint. A seated female allegorical figure with tropical fruit is positioned at right, rendered in fine engraved detail. Three signature varieties are known for this issue, with the bank name and statutory anti-counterfeiting warning inscription running across the face. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | 25 BANQUE DE LA MARTINIQUE E.A. WRIGHT BANK NOTE CO. PHILA (Translation: 25 Bank of Martinique) |
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| Comments |
The Banque de la Martinique's wartime issues are a direct consequence of the Allied blockade of Vichy-controlled Martinique. After Admiral Robert's administration was effectively cut off from metropolitan France and then from normal currency supply chains, the island faced a genuine shortage of circulating paper. Notes in this series were printed in Philadelphia precisely because Free French and Allied logistical networks could reach American printers when European ones could not.
E. A. Wright was primarily a securities and commercial engraving house — not a specialist currency printer in the De La Rue or American Bank Note Company sense — which occasionally shows in the execution of this series.