Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
50 Centimes
| Issuer | Gouvernement Général de l'Afrique Occidentale Française - Colonie de la Guinée Française |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Rectangular |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Printed in dark brown on a salmon-pink ground, the obverse is enclosed within an ornate geometric border of repeating foliate motifs. Two circular coin vignettes flank the large central denomination numeral 0 fr. 50 — the left bearing the 50 Centimes coin reverse with an olive branch and the legend LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ, the right showing the Semeuse type with RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE. The issuing authority GOUVERNEMENT GÉNÉRAL DE L'A.O.F. and colonial attribution COLONIE DE LA GUINÉE FRANÇAISE are inscribed in letterpress above, with spaces below reserved for a manuscript serial number and two handwritten signatures over the printed titles Le Trésorier-Payeur and Le Lt-Gouverneur. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | P#1a - watermark: Bees imprint on back 23 mm long P#1b - watermark: Bees imprint on back 26 mm long P#1c - watermark: laurel leaves P#1d - without watermark |
| Comments |
French Guinea's 1917 emergency fractional notes were a direct consequence of wartime metal shortages that stripped West African colonies of their small change almost overnight. The Gouvernement Général's response was to authorize each colony to produce its own low-denomination paper, which is why nearly identical series appeared simultaneously across French West Africa — Guinea, Dahomey, Mauritania, and others — each distinguished primarily by the colonial name in the header.
The Gorée press, operating out of a small government facility on the island off Dakar, produced utilitarian colonial scrip rather than engraved banknote work. Survival rates are low; the notes were never meant to last.