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50 Francs - Saint-Exupéry type 1992 modified
| Issuer | Banque de France |
|---|---|
| Year | 1994-1999 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 123 × 80 mm |
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| Obverse description | At center-right, an intaglio portrait vignette of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944); to the left, two of the aviator's flight routes are traced over a world map underprint alongside the silhouette of a Latécoère 25 aircraft. Four motifs from the novella 'The Little Prince' are integrated into the design: a micro-text extract from the novel in the upper-left corner, the 'boa constrictor digesting an elephant' illustration, a sheep rendered in colorless intaglio ink, and a vignette of the Little Prince himself. |
|---|---|
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| Variants | P#157Aa - 1994 signatures: Bruneel / Bonnardin / Vigier with underlined "al" in signature titles P#157Ab - 1994 signatures: Bruneel / Bonnardin / Vigier without underlined "al" in signature titles P#157Ac - 1996 signatures: Bruneel / Bonnardin / Barroux P#157Ad - 1997 & 1999 signatures: Bruneel / Bonnardin / Barroux |
| Comments |
The Saint-Exupéry 50 Francs was the last note of this denomination issued before France's transition to the euro, and one of the more typographically fussy series in the Bank of France's modern output. The 1994 signature variant split almost immediately into two collectible sub-types distinguished solely by whether the "al" in official signature titles is underlined — a proofreading inconsistency caught late, not a deliberate revision.
Roger Pfund's design work for the Banque de France was unusual in that he brought a graphic arts sensibility more common to Swiss printing than to French official currency. Printed at the Chamalières facility in Puy-de-Dôme, the note ran across five signature combinations over its production life, giving date-conscious collectors a meaningful progression to reconstruct.