3000 Francs Independence

The Banque des États de l'Afrique Équatoriale et du Cameroun — BDEAC — was a transitional institution, managing monetary affairs for the former French Equatorial Africa territories and Cameroun through the turbulent years following independence in the early 1960s. This 1970 gold issue commemorates that independence period more than a decade after the fact, part of a broader wave of prestige coinage struck primarily for collector export rather than domestic circulation. France's Monnaie de Paris handled production for most BDEAC issues, and the .900 fineness follows the standard of the Latin Monetary Union long after that union had ceased to function.