5 Centimes

French Guinea's 1920 emergency cardboard issues emerged from a coin shortage that plagued the entire AOF federation after World War One — metropolitan France had too little small coinage to supply its West African territories, so individual colonies briefly issued their own low-denomination cardboard tokens as substitutes. Guinea's series was among the more short-lived of these, replaced quickly once fractional coinage supplies normalized.

De La Nézière was a painter and illustrator with deep personal ties to North and West Africa, which explains his assignment to several AOF colonial issues. Puyplat was a prolific engraver for the French state printing works. The cardboard substrate makes survival in collectible condition genuinely difficult — these were handled daily as small change.