The "Holy Grail" here is not metaphorical — this piece belongs to a category of high-relief collector issues produced specifically for the numismatic gift market, where the materials list does more selling than the coin's monetary function ever could. Samoa's liberal licensing of its sovereign coinage authority to foreign minting houses, primarily European, has made it one of the most prolific sources of novelty bullion-adjacent issues in the 2020s.
The lapis lazuli inlay sources from deposits mined almost exclusively in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province, worked continuously for over 6,000 years.
The "Holy Grail" here is not metaphorical — this piece belongs to a category of high-relief collector issues produced specifically for the numismatic gift market, where the materials list does more selling than the coin's monetary function ever could. Samoa's liberal licensing of its sovereign coinage authority to foreign minting houses, primarily European, has made it one of the most prolific sources of novelty bullion-adjacent issues in the 2020s.
The lapis lazuli inlay sources from deposits mined almost exclusively in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province, worked continuously for over 6,000 years.