10 Francs Chimpanzee

The Democratic Republic of the Congo resumed issuing collector coinage almost immediately after Laurent-Désiré Kabila renamed the country from Zaire in 1997 — a renaming that itself voided the entire preceding numismatic catalog of the Mobutu era. These early DRC issues were produced almost entirely for the foreign collector market, with no meaningful domestic circulation. The chimpanzee series falls squarely in that category.

KM#36 is part of a broader wildlife-themed program typical of small-nation mint contracts from this period, where the issuing country licenses its sovereign authority to a European or private mint.