Catalog
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| Issuer | Afrique Occidentale Française - Côte d'Ivoire |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | AFRIQUE OCCIDENTALE FRANÇAISE CÔTE D'IVOIRE VALEUR D'ÉCHANGE 0 FR. 25 E. FROMENT J. DE LA NEZIERE |
| Reverse description | Plain unprinted tan cardboard reverse with serrated edges, bearing no text, vignette, or ornamentation of any kind. |
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| Comments |
The Afrique Occidentale Française emergency cardboard issues of 1917–1920 were a direct response to wartime metal shortages that stripped French West Africa of its small-denomination coinage. Individual colonial territories — Côte d'Ivoire among them — were authorized to issue their own fractional notes, which accounts for the territory-specific overprinting on what was otherwise a federated series. Cardboard as a substrate was a practical compromise, though it wore badly in the humid coastal climate.
De La Nézière, a painter and illustrator with deep roots in French North and West Africa, brought genuine regional experience to the design work — unusual for colonial scrip of this type, which typically recycled generic allegorical imagery with no connection to the issuing territory.