Gold Coin 20 Frank Leopold II. Belgian 1870 - 1882

20 gold francs Leopold II 1870 - 1882

Gold coins issued during the reign of King Leopold II of Belgium from 1870 to 1882. These gold coins are very rarely obtained and are therefore highly sought after by collectors and investors.

Leopold II. Belgian

Leopold II. Leopold of Belgium (9 April 1835, Brussels - 17 December 1909, Laeken) was a Belgian king and owner of the Congo Free State. He was born in Brussels on 9 April 1835, the second of three sons of the first King of Belgium, Leopold I, and his second wife, Louise d'Orléans, but his elder brother Louis Philippe died as a one-year-old child before Leopold's birth.

In 1865 he succeeded to the Belgian throne after the death of his father. He was renowned for his harshness and ruthlessness, especially towards those closest to him. He ruled for forty-four years and left Belgium rich and strong - as he wished.

The wealth came mainly from the African Congo, a colony in central Africa, which he conquered by his political skill without military intervention. In 1885 he became ruler there and for a long time it was his private property, Leopold allowed himself to be addressed as the sovereign king of this African state. He was one of the greatest owners of the colonies. He financially supported the explorer H. M. Stanley, who discovered the Congo for him. The colony was a slave colony and Leopold ran a ruthless loot economy, mining rubber and ivory). His fortune amounted to three million pounds. According to the History Review, this is equivalent to £1 billion today. According to various sources, Leopold was one of the greatest mass murderers in history, having been responsible for the deaths of several million people.

In the 1890s, he attempted to lease the British colony of Sudan, the inhabitants of which he wanted to form an army with which to conquer at least China. In 1908, following the publication of the exploitation of the Congo by the journalist and politician Edmund Dene Morel, an affair broke out which led to the state taking control of the territory hitherto known as the Belgian Congo, and Leopold bequeathed all his property rights in the Congo colony to the Belgian state in his will.