1 Pound Cyprus Orchid - Silver Proof Issue

Cyprus joined the global wave of wildlife conservation coinage that swept through commonwealth-adjacent mints in the 1990s, driven partly by WWF licensing arrangements and partly by collector market demand that made silver proofs a reliable revenue stream for smaller central banks. The native Ophrys kotschyi — the Cyprus bee orchid — had been under habitat pressure since the accelerated resort development of the 1980s along the southern coast.

KM#90a is the silver proof variant of a base-metal circulation issue, a pairing common to Cypriot commemorative policy of that decade.