5000 Francs CFA Phoenix head

The Phoenix appears here under the authority of the BCEAO — the West African central bank that issues the CFA franc across eight member states, Ivory Coast among them. The CFA franc itself has operated under a fixed parity with the euro since 1999, and before that with the French franc, a monetary arrangement dating to 1945 that has survived decolonization, coups, and repeated calls for reform largely intact.

Ruthenium plating on a bullion-weight silver piece is uncommon. The metal, a platinum-group element, is harder than rhodium and imparts a darker, near-black finish that most mints have only begun deploying commercially in the last decade.