100 Cents

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 following a thirty-year armed struggle, making it one of Africa's newest nations at the time this coin was struck. The Bank of Eritrea was established almost immediately after independence, and this 1997 issue belongs to the country's first circulating coinage series — a deliberate assertion of economic separateness from Ethiopia, which had used the birr as its currency throughout the occupation period.

The nakfa, introduced in 1997 to replace the Ethiopian birr at par, triggered an immediate currency dispute with Ethiopia that contributed directly to the outbreak of the Eritrea-Ethiopia War in 1998.