10 Francs Benedict XVI - Cologne

Issued to commemorate World Youth Day 2005, held in Cologne that August — the first under Benedict XVI, elected just four months earlier following John Paul II's death in April. It was Benedict's first major public event as pope, drawing an estimated one million pilgrims to the Rhine for the closing Mass. The DRC has a long history of issuing collector silver on behalf of international themes with no domestic connection, and this piece is squarely in that tradition.