5 Centimes

French West Africa's postage stamp emergency currency is one of the stranger episodes in colonial monetary history. A wartime metal shortage had already pushed France to issue stamp-money (monnaie de nécessité) at home, and the same logic was applied in the AOF territories — existing postage stamps were mounted onto stiff cardboard and issued as fractional currency. The Côte d'Ivoire series of 1920 represents a later, regional application of that stopgap, well after the armistice had rendered the original emergency moot.

De La Nézière's engraving work appears on the stamp itself rather than the card mount.