5000 Francs

Guinea declared independence from France on 2 October 1958 — the only French West African territory to vote "Non" in de Gaulle's constitutional referendum that year. The break was immediate and punitive: France withdrew its administrators, stripped the country's assets, and severed it from the CFA franc zone. Guinea needed its own currency almost overnight, and the resulting notes were produced in Czechoslovakia, a Cold War alignment that reflected both Soviet-bloc sympathy and the simple unavailability of Western printers willing to take the contract on short notice.

Státní Tiskárna Cenin, the Czechoslovak state security printer, had limited experience with African banknote commissions at this date. The microtext security feature on this series is notably modest by contemporary standards.