See full images — free registration
Continue with Google — it's free or register with email

20 Makuta

Issuer Banque Nationale du Congo
Year 1967-1970
Type Log in to see details
Value Log in to see details
Currency Log in to see details
Composition Log in to see details
Size Log in to see details
Shape Log in to see details
Printer Log in to see details
Designer(s) Log in to see details
Engraver(s) Log in to see details
In circulation to Log in to see details
Reference(s) P#10
Obverse description Log in to see details
Obverse lettering Log in to see details
Reverse description Central vignette of a traditional pirogue on a river, rendered in fine intaglio engraving, set against a guilloche underprint. The bank name and denomination appear in letterpress above and below the central design.
Reverse lettering BANQUE NATIONALE DU CONGO
20 MAKUTA - 20 MAKUTA
THOMAS DE LA RUE & COMPANY, LIMITED.
Signature(s) Log in to see details
Protection type Log in to see details
Protection description Log in to see details
Variants Log in to see details
Comments

The Banque Nationale du Congo replaced the pre-independence Banque Centrale du Congo Belge et du Ruanda-Urundi structure, and this note belongs to the brief makuta series introduced after Mobutu's 1967 monetary reform renamed the subunit from centime. Thomas De La Rue handled the printing throughout this period, a common arrangement for newly independent francophone African states that lacked domestic printing infrastructure.

The series was short-lived. By 1971, Mobutu's authenticity campaign — which renamed the country Zaïre and pushed wholesale replacement of colonial-era nomenclature — rendered the entire Banque Nationale du Congo issue obsolete almost immediately.