Gabon 100 Francs 1977 (scaled to about 250dpi)

On 17th August 1960, the Gabonese Republic came into being when full independence from France was attained.

The first coins of Gabon were a gold series of commemoratives issued in the 1960’s marking the event of the country’s independence. Later in 1969/1971 a series of Silver and Gold commemorative coins were issued, the Gold pieces being similar to the 1970 Gold commemoratives of Cameroon and Congo.

The first circulation coins specifically for the Gabon were 100 Franc coins dated 1971. There are eight other dates of this denomination with the last one being 1985. There was also a 500 Francs circulation coin issued for Gabon in 1985. It would seem that these 1985 coins must be the last circulation coins specifically of Gabon.

Gabon along with Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and Equatorial Guinea is a member of the Central African States. These six nations form the Central Africa Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), whose common central bank is the Bank of Central African States (BEAC).

I have already mentioned, that the Gabonese coins are somewhat thin in number. The Bank of the Central African States issues (or has issued) coins of denominations 500 Francs down to 1 Franc and these are for use in any of the countries in CEMAC. Furthermore, the 1976-1991 dated 50 Francs and the 500 Francs 1976 to 1984 all had a letter A, B, C, D or E on them to show their intended country of first issue. The pieces with the letter “D” were the ones first issued in Gabon. The Central African States evolved from the Equatorial African States and the coins of the Equatorial African States were widely used in Gabon and are dated 1958 to 1973.

Images added at May-2013.