10 Vatu Pierre de Coubertin

Issued to mark the 150th anniversary of Pierre de Coubertin's birth, this miniature gold piece belongs to a wave of fractional gold issues Vanuatu produced in the early 2010s under licensing arrangements common to small Pacific island mints seeking seigniorage revenue from collector markets rather than domestic circulation. De Coubertin, born in Paris in 1863, founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894 and organized the first modern Games in Athens two years later. He died in Geneva in 1937, leaving instructions that his heart be buried separately in Olympia, Greece — which it was.