10 Dinars 1996 Coup d'état 9th Anniversary

Tunisia's November 7, 1987 coup — in which Zine El Abidine Ben Ali deposed the aging and increasingly erratic Habib Bourguiba by invoking a medical incapacity clause — was immediately rebranded as a bloodless "Change," and Ben Ali's government made a ritual of commemorating the date annually. These anniversary issues were as much political currency as monetary objects, reinforcing the legitimacy of a takeover that had no electoral mandate behind it.

By the ninth anniversary, the commemorative program was well-established and largely aimed at collector export rather than domestic circulation.