10 Dollars Sitting Bull - 1876

Liberia's late-1990s and early-2000s commemorative program was a straightforward revenue operation — the country was in the middle of a devastating civil war, and the Liberian government issued hundreds of foreign-market collector coins with no intention of circulation, largely as a hard-currency income stream. This piece is one of dozens from that run depicting American historical figures, produced almost certainly by a private mint under contract and never intended to reach Liberian soil.

Sitting Bull died in 1890 at Standing Rock, shot by Indian agency police during an attempt to arrest him amid Ghost Dance tensions — twelve years before Liberia's modern coinage system even existed.