10 Shillings - Elizabeth II 2nd portrait

Rhodesia issued this coin in the immediate aftermath of Ian Smith's Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain in November 1965 — a political rupture that left the country's currency in legal limbo. The Reserve Bank of Rhodesia pressed ahead with gold coinage partly to signal economic legitimacy to a skeptical international community, and partly because gold reserves gave the regime a harder monetary footing than the sanctions-strangled economy could otherwise sustain.

The second portrait of Elizabeth II appears here despite Smith's government having severed ties with the Crown — an irony the Rhodesian administration never publicly addressed. The republic was not declared until 1970.