3000 Francs CFA Martin Luther King

The Central African Republic issued this piece in 1970, just two years after King's assassination in Memphis, making it one of the earliest foreign gold commemoratives struck in his honor. The timing placed it squarely within a broader wave of post-colonial African nations using commemorative coinage as both diplomatic signaling and hard-currency generation — the coins were rarely intended for domestic circulation and were sold primarily to Western collector markets through agents and coin fairs.

The issuing authority was the Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique Centrale. KM#2 confirms this as among the very first coin types assigned to the republic's independent numismatic program.