CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC 100 francs 1983

Description

The Central African Republic is a Texas-sized landlocked country that occupies a climatic transition zone, with the Sahara desert to the north and savannah and forest to the south. There are a lot of ethnic groups that have sometimes contentious interactions. A lot of slaves were taken from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The French took it in the late 19th century and held it as a colonial possession until 1960. The political succession since independence has been mostly dictatorial, with one of them declaring himself “Emperor.” He was overthrown by French troops. The politics have continued to be chaotic, prone to coups and rebellions.

It has been habitual, on the collecting side of numismatics, for “Africa” to exclude the Mediterranean coastal states, which are typically lumped in with the other Arab states in the category “Middle East.” Generally speaking, there was a colonial period and an independent period.

By “Modern World Coins” we mean here, generally, the round, flat, shiny metal objects that people have used for money and still do. “Modern,” though, varies by location. There was some other way they were doing their economies, and then they switched over to “modern coins,” then they went toward paper money, now we’re all going toward digital, a future in which kids look at a coin and say “What’s that?” We’ll say: “We used to use those to buy things.” Kids will ask “How?” The main catalog reference is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, to which the KM numbers refer.