10 Francs Essai

The New Hebrides was an Anglo-French condominium — one of the stranger colonial arrangements in Pacific history, where Britain and France jointly administered the islands from 1906 to 1980 with parallel legal systems, dual currencies, and chronic administrative friction. This 1967 essai was part of the French monetary side of that arrangement, struck at Paris as a pattern submission rather than for circulation. Essais from this territory are characteristically low-mintage pieces produced for official approval, and the New Hebrides series is among the smaller and less-documented of the French Pacific issues.