The zaire was introduced as a currency in 1967, yet it became a circulating coin only twenty years later: this brass 1 zaire of 1987 opened the country’s last coin series, the 1, 5 and 10 zaires of 1987–1988.

One side bears the portrait of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled the country from 1965 to 1997, with the inscription «UN ZAIRE» and the date. The other shows a large «1Z» and the name of the issuer, «BANQUE DU ZAIRE», the Bank of Zaire.

The coin was struck by the Royal Mint at Llantrisant in Britain. Its life proved short: inflation rapidly eroded the zaire, by December 1992 a dollar cost about 1,990,000 zaires, and in 1993 the «new zaire» replaced it at three million old units to one new.

Grade VF-AU: wear ranges from moderate to barely visible, and the portrait and legends read clearly. A one-year type, it is a vivid document of the Mobutu era and the final years of Zaire’s coinage.

You can compare this coin with the country’s other issues in the VPcoins catalogue.