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500 Francs
| Issuer | Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest |
|---|---|
| Year | 1959 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BANQUE CENTRALE DES ÉTATS DE L'AFRIQUE DE L'OUEST CINQ CENTS FRANCS (Translation: Central Bank of the Western African States, Five Hundred Francs) |
| Reverse description | At left, a three-quarter portrait vignette of an African woman in traditional dress and beaded headdress, rendered in intaglio; at right, an engraved scene of a farmer operating a tractor ploughing a field, with palm trees and open sky in the background. The border carries a repeating band of African decorative motifs with stylised figures along the lateral margins, and a text warning cartouche appears at the lower centre. |
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| Comments |
The Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest was established in 1959 as the common central bank for the French West African monetary union — a currency arrangement that survived decolonization essentially intact, with France retaining a formal guarantee role over the CFA franc. This note's twenty-year date span reflects not a single print run but successive emissions across member states including Senegal, Ivory Coast, Mali before its withdrawal, and others, each distinguished by letter prefixes and control codes rather than separate series.
Banque de France handled production throughout, maintaining continuity of security specifications even as the political geography of the issuing zone shifted considerably during the 1960s.