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5 Francs Baudouin I - King of Belgium
| Issuer | Democratic Republic of the Congo (1997-date) |
|---|---|
| Year | 2000 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Francs |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Edge | Reeded |
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| Additional information |
This piece belongs to a commemorative series issued by the Democratic Republic of the Congo — a country that had only just reclaimed that name in 1997 after three decades as Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire. Baudouin I reigned over Belgium from 1951 until his death in 1993, and his relationship with the Congo was complicated from the start: his uncle Leopold III had presided over the brutal exploitation of the Congo Free State, and Baudouin himself delivered a tone-deaf independence speech in 1960 that drew an impromptu rebuke from Patrice Lumumba on the ceremony's own stage.
That a post-Mobutu Congolese mint authority would license his image for revenue-generating commemoratives decades later is purely commercial pragmatism. KM#121 is a collector issue with no circulation history.