50 Francs - Belain d'Esnambuc

The Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer was established in 1944 specifically to manage currency across French overseas territories as liberation-era France rebuilt its colonial financial infrastructure. This 50 Francs note, named for Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc — the Norman merchant who established French settlement on Martinique in 1635 — circulated across the French Antilles, French Guiana, and Réunion simultaneously, a single note serving geographically scattered territories with no monetary connection to one another except French sovereignty.

Hourriez and Régnier were both senior Banque de France engravers, and the quality of intaglio work on this series reflects that institutional pedigree. P#22 is among the more available picks in the CCFOM catalog, though clean examples without the tropical foxing typical of Caribbean circulation are harder to locate than the catalog frequency suggests.