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5 Francs

Issuer Banque Nationale du Katanga
Year 1961
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In circulation to January 1963
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Obverse description Central device depicts a stylized bunch of bananas (Musa x paradisiaca, family Musaceae), rendered in low relief with overlapping curved fruit forms and a palm-like crown at the apex. The motif is enclosed within a raised inner circle. The legend KATANGA arcs along the upper periphery in widely spaced capital letters, with two small Katanga crosses flanking numerals at the lower border, all within a raised outer rim.
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Edge Plain
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Additional information

Katanga's secession from the newly independent Congo lasted from July 1960 until January 1963, backed largely by Belgian mining interests and the Union Minière du Haut Katanga, which controlled the region's vast copper wealth. The Banque Nationale du Katanga issued coins almost immediately — a deliberate act of institutional legitimacy by Moïse Tshombe's government, projecting the image of a functioning sovereign state to an international community that largely refused to recognize it.

The United Nations actively worked to suppress the secession, and Katanga's existence as a political entity was over within three years. Surviving coinage from this period is finite by definition — no additional issues followed 1961.