10 Vatu John Paul II & Arafat

Vanuatu has issued a long series of silver-plated commemoratives pairing improbable combinations of world figures, and this piece is among the more striking examples — John Paul II, who died in 2005, and Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004, sharing a coin issued seven years after both were dead. Neither figure had any particular connection to Vanuatu. These are collector novelties produced for the international souvenir market, with the Reserve Bank lending its name to issues that bear no relationship to domestic monetary policy or history.