1 Pound Treaty of Rome

Issued to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, this coin arrived in a peculiar political moment: Cyprus was less than a year away from adopting the euro, making a commemorative pound coin a near-farewell to the currency itself. The island had signed its EU accession treaty in Athens in April 2003, joining the bloc in May 2004 after decades of seeking closer European alignment despite the unresolved division of the island since 1974.

The euro changeover came on 1 January 2008, rendering this one of the last commemorative issues struck under the Cyprus pound.