10 000 Nouveaux Zaïres Leopard

By 1996, Mobutu Sese Seko's government was functionally bankrupt, the Zaïrian economy destroyed by decades of kleptocracy and hyperinflation so severe that the central bank had resorted to printing banknotes with extra zeros rather than redesigning them. Large gold bullion pieces like this one were never intended for domestic circulation — they were produced for hard-currency export, effectively selling off national gold to generate foreign exchange that the collapsing nouveau zaïre could no longer attract.

Mobutu's regime fell to Laurent-Désiré Kabila's forces the following year. The nation was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May 1997.