10 Dollars Galileo Galilei

Nauru's 1994 commemorative program leaned heavily on European scientific figures — an unusual choice for a Pacific island nation whose own history centered on phosphate extraction and, by the early 1990s, a sovereign wealth fund already beginning its catastrophic mismanagement. The Galileo issue coincided roughly with the 1992–1993 Vatican commission that formally rehabilitated Galileo, closing a 360-year dispute over his condemnation by the Inquisition.

These coins were struck for the collector market and saw no meaningful circulation on Nauru itself.