The West African Monetary Union's early essai program in the 1970s produced pattern strikes specifically for archive and approval purposes, distributed to monetary authorities and select institutions rather than released into circulation. The BCEAO had only been issuing its own coinage since 1961 following the dissolution of French West Africa, and these trial pieces document the young institution's efforts to standardize a coinage identity across eight francophone member states with sharply different economic realities.
KM#E7 is among the scarcer essai strikes of the series. Surviving population is small.
The West African Monetary Union's early essai program in the 1970s produced pattern strikes specifically for archive and approval purposes, distributed to monetary authorities and select institutions rather than released into circulation. The BCEAO had only been issuing its own coinage since 1961 following the dissolution of French West Africa, and these trial pieces document the young institution's efforts to standardize a coinage identity across eight francophone member states with sharply different economic realities.
KM#E7 is among the scarcer essai strikes of the series. Surviving population is small.