Indian Rupee counterstamped Victoria

Obock was a French protectorate on the Gulf of Aden, acquired in 1862 but largely neglected until the 1880s when competition with British Somaliland made a functioning local currency politically necessary. Rather than striking original coinage, French colonial authorities counterstamped circulating British Indian rupees — already the dominant trade coin across the Horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula — with a small punch authorizing their use in Obock's territory. It was a cheap administrative solution to a real monetary problem.

The territory itself was effectively superseded by Djibouti after 1896, which explains the long striking window stretching well past Obock's administrative dissolution.