10 Francs 1908 Berliet

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has issued a long and often bewildering series of collector-targeted commemoratives since the late 1990s, many with no domestic circulation whatsoever. This piece honors Marius Berliet, the French industrialist whose Lyon-based firm produced the CBA truck in 1908 — a vehicle that became foundational to early motorized transport across French colonial Africa. Berliet trucks later supplied both Allied and Axis forces during the Second World War, depending on which side of the Vichy question you were standing on.