World Coins Chat: Niger

Precolonial history of Niger saw Berbers establishing transsaharian commercial routes and later fleeing Arabic invasions of their former territory in the 11th century. They finally interbreeded with local Songhai people. They moved to an Empire in the 15th century up to their defeat versus Saadi Sharifian conquerors. In the following centuries started to emerge Fula and Tuareg people as main leading peoples of Niger.

1st European explorators started to enter the future country in the 1st half of the 19th century with British and German explorers (all paid by UK) to establish trade routes and fighting slavery. We've to wait 1890 to see French colonial army entering Niger. In 1900 Niger is under French rule as a military territory up to 1922 when would be decided to move it to a full colony. Like most former colonies it became an Overseas Territory in 1946 and an autonomous republic in 1958, becoming independant in 1960.

In the following days of independance, a failed putsch leaded by the opposition, whose leader was in exile, made the president turning the country to an autocratic regime up to a successful military coup in 1974. He died in 1987 and the next military ruler decided to start democratization. These efforts were successful in the 1st years but political troubles leaded to a new putsch in 1996. The new leader was assassinated by its guards in 1999 and their chief took the power to give it back to a civil government 9 months later. The elected president ruled 10 years before a new putsch a few months after he created a new Constitution made to keep the power. New elections occurred in 2011 and the democratization restarted.

Niger uses the currencies of the colonial power and its descendant (French Franc, CFA Franc). Niger shared notgelds with Mali under the name of the Chambers of Commerce of Kayes. In BCEAO nations can only mint precious coinage for collectors. So Niger only minted gold and silver coins, ith some colorized. Just notice the nice Amethyst inclusion in the Flirt 1000 Francs.

Mali & Niger notgelds:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/senegal-1.html#devise457

Niger collector coins:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/niger-1.html

This is the last BCEAO country to be reported in Numista, next one: Western Sahara.

Are coins of Syria at their place under Niger ?

https://fr.numista.com/catalogue/index.php?r=niger&ct=coin&p=3

 

Best regards,

Patrick Raffin

That's not how you search in an issuer. Pescennius Niger or Pescennius the Black obviously gets shown as a hit for this word search but has nothing to do with the issuer Niger. THIS is how you do it.