500 Francs

The Trésor Public issues for Côte Française des Somalis occupy an odd corner of French colonial note history — the territory's monetary affairs were administered through Paris rather than through the Banque de l'Indochine, which handled most of France's African and Pacific dependencies at the time. That administrative separation is why these notes carry the Trésor Public imprint rather than the more familiar colonial bank header.

Armanelli and Régnier were both career engravers at the Banque de France's Chamalières atelier, and their work on this series is among the more accomplished of the postwar Trésor Public colonial output. P#27 is notably scarcer than the lower denominations in the set.