French West Africa as a unified administrative entity did not formally exist until 1895, which makes an 1883 attribution to that issuer worth treating with skepticism. Coins of this type were more likely issued under the authority of one of the constituent trading companies or colonial comptoirs operating along the West African coast before federation. The "Units" denomination itself signals a token economy — a scrip-adjacent system designed to control labor payments and limit workers' purchasing power to company stores.
Lec#23 places this squarely in Lecompte's catalog of French colonial tokens rather than official coinage.
French West Africa as a unified administrative entity did not formally exist until 1895, which makes an 1883 attribution to that issuer worth treating with skepticism. Coins of this type were more likely issued under the authority of one of the constituent trading companies or colonial comptoirs operating along the West African coast before federation. The "Units" denomination itself signals a token economy — a scrip-adjacent system designed to control labor payments and limit workers' purchasing power to company stores.
Lec#23 places this squarely in Lecompte's catalog of French colonial tokens rather than official coinage.