World Coins Chat: French Equatorial Africa / Equatorial African States / Central Africa (BEAC)

1st European people to land the territories of the former French colony were Portuguese. They mainly established on the actual Gabonese coast and became mainly slave sellers. They were followed by Dutch by the same way.

French colonization in Equatorial Africa started in Gabon in 1839 after a treaty with a tribal sovereign, King Denis Rapontchombo. By this way, France became the 1st European colonizer to explore the local hinterland. In half a century, France colonized the whole Gabon, "Medium-Congo" - finally called French Congo after becoming a formal colony - the Ubangi-Shari territory (actually in Central African Republic) and finally conquerred the Kanem-Bornu Empire (actually in Chad). All these colonies/territories were considered as one main colony in 1911 as French Equatorial Africa.

Please note that the local Governor was the 1st to claim his alleagance with the Free France during WWII. As an answer for this fidelity, France opened a conference in Brazzaville to create the French Union, replacing the old colonial system.

After a referendum in September 1958 the French Eqatorial Africa splitted in 4 autonomous republics (Gabon, Congo, Central Africa and Chad) which reunified themselves as a Union of Central African Republics before their independance in 1960. Their currency union integrated Cameroon in 1960 and finally they created the Central African States Bank (BEAC: Banque des Etats d'Afrique Centrale), central bank of the currency union, in 1972. Equatorial Guinea joined the currency union in 1985.

The French colonies used the French franc, but after WWI local banknotes started to be printed. The colony had to wait for the WWII to have its own coinage. The 1st coins were minted in South Africa. Please note that the holed 10 centimes coin was not officially released and finally became very rare. After the war, a new coinage appeared, with a common design with Cameroon coinage: specific coinage of 1 franc and 2 francs with separate territorial inscription, and a fully-shared coinage for 5 francs, 10 francs and 25 francs coins.

The BEAC 1st series coinage (excluding Equatorial Guinea, which made its own 1st series coinage in Spanish after joining the currency union) appeared after its establishment in 1972, but initially kept the same design since the colonial coinage. Please note the 50 francs coinage appeared later with varieties showing for which country the coin was intended to go, and about 100 francs and 500 francs, there is a mix between BEAC common coinage and specific coinage from each country. In 2006 was introduced the new CEMAC series to withdraw old coinage (told to be highly counterfeited, particularly the 100 francs). Note there is no more specific coinage from Equatorial Guinea, except commemoratives, like other countries who still have the right to emit their own commemorative coinage.

French Equatorial Africa:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/aef-1.html

FEA-Cameroon common coinage:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/cameroun-2.html

Equatorial African States coinage:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/afrique_equatoriale-1.html

Central Africa (BEAC) coinage:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/beac-1.html

My only coin from French Equatorial Africa. Not much to say about its history - it's just one of many aluminum colonial francs, similar to those issued in just about every French possession from 1948 to the present day. If you take a closer look at the design, the eland? (animals aren't my strong suit) is surrounded by corn, wheat, and cotton.


CFA issues from Cameroon. In 1948, it seems like the Territory of Cameroon and French Equatorial Africa were considered to be separate colonies, but they were later merged.


My only Equatorial African States coin is also my only essai - a type of pattern strike produced by the Paris Mint in quantities of triple or quadruple digits, usually intended to be sold to collectors. In other languages these are also known as "provas", "probas", and so on... I'm not sure if a direct translation exists to English. This particular essai had a mintage of just 1,550.

You can spot an essai by its unique finish and the tiny word "ESSAI" written somewhere on the coin. It's written so tiny, in fact, that I didn't even realize that this coin was an essai until I had brought it home from the store (the store also didn't notice). Lucky find!



The "three eland" design from the Equatorial States issues was reused on the lower denominations.

To be honest, earlier Central African States coinage really confuses me. The lower denominations from 1 to 25 francs circulated in every country. Then the 50 franc and 500 franc issues have a letter saying which country they were issued for (although, of course, I assume that these coins would have been mixed around across the borders, like how today's Euro coins are not limited to their issuing country). And the 100 franc coins were issued by every individual country?? "Common" 100 franc coins with no national identification were only first issued in 1992. Why not make all the coins common? Why not mark all the coins with a letter? Why not mark all the coins with the name of their issuing nation? It's all very confusing.



Here are four 100 franc coins, two from Cameroon, one from Chad, and one from Gabon. OFEC collectors will be familiar with these as they are basically the only circulating coins issued by individual member states in the Central African union.

Notice a change in the design - the 1970s issues were issued by the "Central Bank"s of their respective countries, while the 1980s issues were issued by the "Bank of the Central African States". Again, I can't keep track of all this


I have supersized the image of this 500-franc coin because it's possibly the nicest modern coin in the world. (Do I say this a lot? I think modern coins are unappreciated.) The design beautifully combines abstract and realistic elements with local relevance while being entirely suitable for usage on coins. Even when this coin gets worn out, it will still be a little masterpiece.


My only coin from the latest Central African coin series (finally, they have standardized their coins - thank you for making my life easier, Bank of the Central African States) is this attractive bimetallic issue.

The lower denominations used in Central Africa are nothing special, but the higher denominations are worth special attention - either because they look nice, or because they are the only way to add certain elusive African countries to your OFEC collection.

If you have a Central African coin with a letter from A to E on it, here is the list of countries that those letters correspond to:

A = Chad
B = Central African Republic
C = Republic of the Congo
D = Gabon
E = Cameroon

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1804.html

I think this coin (and the 10 and 25 Francs) should be moved to French Equatorial Africa rather than listed under Cameroon.

Thanks for helping out chomp-master! Could you take care of Chad as well? I am preparing Ethiopia.

Done. And do Somalia too, I'm preparing Djibouti.

After a few investigations I've finally understood the cause of these 50F-100F-500F strange facts. The system by country for these coins was abandoned in 1991-1992 to unify these coinages. This doesn't concern nalaberong's 500F coin but the following one, as the 80's coins were minted for the countries like the 100F coins. For the modern 50F, after 1991 no more letter appeared on the coins.

"Prova" or "proba" means try our tryout in English.

There are any official explanation why only Cameroon had coins with its name?

The antelope on the 5, 10 and 50 franc coins are Lord Derby eland. Majestic things but I’ve never seen them!