Indian Rupee counterstamped William IV

Obock was a French-controlled coaling station on the Gulf of Tadjoura, and its monetary arrangements were improvised at best. Rather than striking purpose-made coinage, authorities counterstamped circulating Indian rupees — specifically William IV issues, which by the 1890s were already decades old and officially demonetized in British India following the Currency Act of 1876. The "O" counterstamp applied to these pieces gave French colonial sanction to coins that had effectively been retired from their original monetary role.

The territory itself was superseded by the colony of French Somaliland in 1896, making the window for legitimate issue quite narrow.