500 Francs Independence

Dahomey's independence coinage was never intended for circulation. These silver pieces were struck by the Monnaie de Paris explicitly for the international collector market — a revenue strategy adopted by dozens of newly independent African states in the 1960s and early 1970s, often coordinated through agreements with European mints eager for the contract work. The political entity that commissioned this coin ceased to exist in 1975 when Mathieu Kérékou's Marxist-Leninist government renamed the country Benin following his 1972 coup.

KM#3 is one of only four coin types struck for Dahomey across its entire fifteen-year existence as a named state.