In 1960’s the region of Central Africa including Cameroun, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and Gabon had formed a monetary union under the name Equatorial African States. This monetary union issued common design banknotes for the five countries, under their Banque Centrale, and managed currency creation and delivery for the region. The region was (and still is) in the “Zone Franc” and thus used Francs CFA tied to the French Franc at a rate of 50/1. The Banque Centrale issued notes coded by simple letter for each country, and otherwise were identical. All the notes were printed by Banque de France. In 1963 a note was designed by the prolific Pierrette Lambert which featured a village scene from Brazzaville (Congo) and the St. Anne Basilica in the background. The back shows a logging truck and scenes of the modernization of Africa. This note is a wonderful example of French African banknotes, with wonderful details and colors, intaglio layered on a colorful lithographed image – truly a note you can examine for hours. I don’t own that note. The Equatorial African States monetary union was not to last long (only from about 1961-1972), to be succeeded by the Bank of the Central African States (BEAC). The BEAC exists to this day, and now includes Equatorial Guinea as well as the aforementioned countries. The BEAC initially issued face-different banknotes for each country, with common back designs (more on these in a future post). By a stroke of luck, the BEAC re-released the Village Scene note in 1980, to be used in Chad and the Central African Republic. The Chad note is pictured below, as well as a postcard featuring the Basilica which can be seen in the background at the left side of the banknote. Dave
I have a few notes from the BEAC. Just love the rich colours and the scenes depicting everyday life (though probably not the reality for a lot of the countries involved). Just had a look at the details on the reverse and that plane is definitely descending. "Hang on to your seatbelts. I don't think we're gonna make it!"
