100 Dollars - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait - Summer Olympics - Gold Proof

Issued by the Perth Mint to coincide with the Sydney 2000 Olympics, this piece belongs to a larger commemorative program the Mint produced aggressively throughout the late 1990s in anticipation of the Games. The "pad printed" designation is the detail worth noting: a dry offset printing technique applied color directly to the gold field, a relatively novel application for Australian bullion coinage at the time and one that created immediate collector interest in surface preservation.