100 Dollars Sailing Ships

This note belongs to a short-lived series of legal tender collector issues produced by several Eastern Caribbean island governments in the early 1980s, a period when small sovereign states were actively exploring numismatic revenues as a supplementary income stream. Antigua and Barbuda had only gained full independence in November 1981, and this issue — one of the first under its own name — reflects that almost immediate pivot toward philatelic and numismatic exports as soft currency earners.

The silver-and-gold-foil construction places it firmly outside conventional circulation. D'Estrehan's design work on this series was commissioned specifically for the collector market, not adapted from circulating currency stock.