I have had a particular interest in Madagascar ever since a close friend of mine went to work there for a while. He returned with a handful of banknotes for me, but more importantly he came back with a little history and current information regarding this island nation off of the east coast of Africa. I have also noticed, since I started collecting banknotes, that the older Francs, with few exceptions, are becoming more scarce and are fetching higher prices. Hence, I picked up a couple of Madagascar banknotes to add to my collection, before they go up any higher in price. Among them was a 500 Franc / 100 Ariary banknote from 1964. It seems like Madagascar has made either one long attempt or several attempts to get away from Francs and establish their own currency. At the present time they are using Ariary as their currency, but inflation is proving to be an issue. This latest note hasn’t been current for a while, and so inflation is not an issue. For $22.87 I got this beauty:

Madagascar p58: 500 Francs / 100 Ariary from 1964