10 Francs CURTISS-Centenary of Aviation

Glenn Curtiss won the first Gordon Bennett Trophy race in 1909 and was awarded Scientific American's trophy for the first public fixed-wing flight exceeding one kilometer in the United States — achievements that placed him briefly ahead of the Wright brothers in the public imagination. The Congo's aviation centenary series, issued across multiple base-metal commemoratives with silver plating, was produced for the collector novelty market rather than circulation, a common revenue strategy among smaller issuing states in the 2000s.