50 Centimes

The AOF emergency fractional notes of 1917 exist because the First World War severed the supply of small coinage to French West Africa entirely. With metropolitan France diverting metal to the war effort, individual colonial administrations were authorized to print their own paper substitutes for coin denominations — an unusual devolution of monetary authority within the federation. Dahomey's issues were printed on Gorée Island, off Dakar, where the Gouvernement Général maintained its colonial press.

These fractional notes circulated alongside identical-format issues from other AOF colonies — Senegal, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire — distinguished only by the colony name. Survival rates are low; the paper was fragile, the denominations heavily used in daily trade.