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1 Franc
| Issuer | Gouvernement Général de l'Afrique Occidentale Française |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Orange and yellow letterpress bon de caisse with an ornate border of repeated geometric rosettes. At left, a circular vignette of the French 1 Franc coin inscribed LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ; at right, a circular vignette of the Semeuse (sower figure) with RÉPULIQUE FRANÇAISE legend. The large denomination UN FRANC is printed in bold red-orange at centre, with the colony authority GOUVERNEMENT GÉNÉRAL DE L'AFRIQUE OCCIDENTALE FRANÇAISE above and COLONIE DU DAHOMEY below; series letter-number and serial number appear at centre, flanked by two manuscript signatures above the designations LE TRÉSORIER-PAYEUR and LE GOUVERNEUR. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Plain reverse printed in black on cream paper, carrying the full text of the decree of 11 February 1917 governing the forced-currency status of the emergency cash vouchers, with the large numeral value at centre. The imprint of the Imprimerie du Gouvernement Général at Gorée appears at the foot. |
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| Comments |
French West Africa's decision to produce its own fractional notes in 1917 was a direct response to wartime coin shortages — metropolitan France had suspended normal specie shipments as the war consumed metal, leaving West African commerce stranded without small change. The Gouvernement Général filled the gap by printing emergency fractions locally at the government press on the island of Gorée, just off the Dakar coast.
Gorée-printed issues are genuinely unusual among colonial emergency paper. Most colonial administrations of the period sent emergency work back to Paris or London; producing the notes on-site at a government press was a practical improvisation born of wartime shipping constraints, not colonial policy.