100 Dollars Sailing Ships

Antigua and Barbuda gained independence on 1 November 1981, and this note was issued as part of that commemorative moment — one of several Caribbean microstates that produced legal-tender silver-foil notes in the early 1980s through arrangements with private minting firms rather than through any central banking mechanism. The denomination is nominal; no one was expected to spend it.

Alan D'Estrehan was a Antiguan artist whose work appeared across several of the island's early independence commemorative issues. The .999 silver substrate with 23-karat gold foil overlay places this firmly in the collectible novelty category rather than the monetary one — a distinction the issuing government was almost certainly indifferent to, given the hard currency such sales generated abroad.