25 Centimes Kayes

Kayes, in what was then French Soudan, sat at the western terminus of the Dakar–Niger railway and functioned as the colony's administrative capital until that role shifted to Bamako in 1908. By 1920, chronic small-change shortages across French West Africa had pushed local Chambers of Commerce to issue their own emergency aluminium tokens — a stopgap the metropolitan administration tolerated but never formally endorsed. Kayes was among the smallest and most remote of the issuing bodies, which kept circulation tight and survival rates low.