20000 — Twenty Thousand Zaïres
The artwork
Front: Mobutu Sese Seko at right in the marshal's peaked cap and heavy black spectacles that were his uniform for three decades, in the abacost collar. A leopard bounds across the lower field — his other emblem — while the arms of Zaïre, a leopard's head over crossed spear and arrow with the motto JUSTICE PAIX TRAVAIL, sit in a roundel. Titles read BANQUE DU ZAÏRE and VINGT MILLE ZAÏRES, dated 1·7·1991 above the governor's signature.
Back: The headquarters of the Banque du Zaïre in Kinshasa, drawn in rose and grey: a tall slab of window bays with its name cut into the façade, a low canopied wing and a screen of trees running to the right. Fanned palm forms rise behind. A large 20000 crowns the panel, repeated at foot beside BANQUE DU ZAÏRE, with the counterfeiter's warning and a BZ monogram on the blank margin.
In circulation
Issued from the 1 July 1991 date as inflation tore through the currency, this 20,000-zaïre note was among the last of the old-zaïre denominations before still larger values followed. The 1993 reform swept them all away, replacing the zaïre with the nouveau zaïre at three million to one.
Details
- IssuerBanque du Zaïre
- CurrencyZaïre
- DenominationTwenty Thousand Zaïres
- Collectedon the Zaire journey, 1992
- SeriesDated 1 July 1991
- PrinterHôtel des Monnaies, Zaïre (imprint at foot of back)
- SignatureSingle signature, titled Le Gouverneur
- SecurityPrinted warning on the back: LE CONTREFACTEUR EST PUNI DE SERVITUDE PENALE