50 Francs - Belain d'Esnambuc

The Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer was established in 1944 to handle currency for French overseas territories after liberation, replacing the older colonial issuing bodies. This 50 Francs note, printed at the Banque de France's Paris workshops, circulated across multiple territories simultaneously — the same P#23 type served Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, and Réunion, distinguished only by the overprint or local authorization stamp applied at point of distribution.

Belain d'Esnambuc, the Norman adventurer who established the first permanent French settlement on Martinique in 1635, was a recurring honorific figure in French Caribbean note design of this period. Hourriez and Régnier were both staff engravers at the Banque de France with credits across numerous colonial issues of the 1940s.