Catalog
5 Francs
| Issuer | Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale |
|---|---|
| Year | 1943-1954 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BANQUE DE L'AFRIQUE OCCIDENTALE CINQ FRANCS SÉB. LAURENT FEC. HOURRIEZ SC. Le Président, Le Directeur Gal, |
| Reverse description | The central vignette shows a muscular West African boatman in close foreground, gripping a long pole as he propels a pirogue; two additional figures are visible in the middle ground paddling long canoes across a calm, expansive waterway with low hills on the horizon. The denomination abbreviation '5 Frs' appears in red at upper left and upper right, and a rectangular white panel at right centre serves as the watermark window. A legal warning in French is printed in a panel at the lower centre. |
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| Comments |
The Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale was a private, Paris-chartered institution that held the note-issuing monopoly across French West Africa — not a colonial government body, which meant its paper circulated across an enormous and administratively fragmented territory spanning eight federating territories. The Banque de France printed this series under wartime and immediate postwar conditions, which affected paper quality and supply consistency across the issue span.
Hourriez and Chapon were both career Banque de France engravers who worked across numerous colonial issues of the period. Laurent's design credit places this firmly within the professional illustration stable that the Banque de France maintained specifically for overseas currency work.