1500 Francs CFA Diogo Cão

Diogo Cão was the Portuguese navigator who, in the early 1480s, became the first European to reach the mouth of the Congo River, erecting stone padrões — marked pillars claiming the territory for the Portuguese Crown — at several points along the coast. The Congo issuer has produced a number of small-format gold pieces commemorating exploration figures with tenuous geographic connection, this being one. At 1.24 grams, it belongs to the 1/25 oz class that proliferated among African franc-zone states in the 2000s primarily as collector fodder rather than circulating coinage.