10 000 Francs Independence

The Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique Équatoriale et du Cameroun was itself a transitional institution — formed to manage the CFA franc zone across Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic, Chad, and the Republic of Congo as each gained independence from France in 1960. By 1972 it was dissolved and replaced by the BEAC, making issues struck under its name a narrow historical window. This 1970 piece was produced for the tenth anniversary of that independence wave, almost certainly struck at the Paris Mint under the technical agreements that kept French minting infrastructure central to Francophone African coinage well into the postcolonial period.