500 Francs CFA Inca Head

Senegal issues this coin under the authority of the BCEAO, the West African central bank governing the CFA franc zone — a monetary union whose franc has been pegged to the French franc, and later the euro, since 1948. The Inca subject has no geographical or historical connection to Senegal whatsoever; it belongs to a class of modern bullion and collector issues where the issuing country is effectively licensing its mint authority to a distributor, with the named nation receiving a fee rather than driving the creative brief.