500000 — Five Hundred Thousand Zaïres
The artwork
Front: Mobutu Sese Seko in marshal's cap and heavy dark glasses, the abacost collar just visible beneath the braid — the portrait that fronted every Zaïrean note of the era. Below him, a leopard bounds across the field, the president's own emblem, and to the right the arms of Zaïre with their leopard's head, arrow and spear. The value is set out in figures three times and spelled "CINQ CENT MILLE ZAÏRES", over the date 15-3-1992 and the Governor's signature.
Back: The Inga hydroelectric dam on the lower Congo, drawn from downstream: the spillway wall stepping away to the right, penstocks running down to the powerhouse, cloud piled behind the hills. Inga was the regime's showpiece of industrial ambition, and it appears here in fine brown line engraving. A large guilloche rosette fills the right of the panel, with "BANQUE DU ZAÏRE" and the figure 500.000 along the foot.
In circulation
Issued from 1992, in the middle of Zaïre's runaway inflation, when denominations climbed from thousands to millions within a couple of years. It was swept away in October 1993 by the nouveau zaïre, exchanged at three million old zaïres to one, and the currency itself gave way to the Congolese franc in 1997.
Details
- IssuerBanque du Zaïre
- CurrencyZaïre
- DenominationFive Hundred Thousand Zaïres
- Collectedon the Zaire journey, 1992
- SeriesDated 15 March 1992; serial LA 7470058 F, letter prefix and suffix
- PrinterGiesecke & Devrient, Munich (imprint at lower left of the back)
- SignatureSingle signature, titled Le Gouverneur
- SecurityCounterfeiting warning on the back: "LE CONTREFACTEUR EST PUNI DE SERVITUDE PENALE"