5000 Francs CFA General Gnassingbe Eyadema, Pattern

Eyadéma seized power in Togo's 1967 coup — the first successful military takeover in independent sub-Saharan Africa — and spent the following decade constructing an increasingly elaborate personality cult around himself. This pattern piece from 1977 falls squarely within that campaign, a period when state imagery, official portraiture, and commemorative objects were deployed systematically to cement his authority. As an essai, it never entered circulation; Togo remained a member of the West African CFA franc zone, and Eyadéma lacked the monetary independence to issue his own circulating coinage.

KM#E9 is catalogued as a pattern with extremely limited production, almost certainly struck at the Paris Mint, which maintained Togo's coinage relationship throughout this period.