100 Dollars Sailing Ships

Antigua and Barbuda had been independent for less than a year when this note was issued — the nation achieved sovereignty from Britain in November 1981. This piece was never intended for circulation; it belongs to a short-lived genre of legal-tender collector issues produced by several newly independent Caribbean states in the early 1980s, partly as revenue instruments dressed in national symbolism.

The .999 silver substrate bonded to 23-karat gold foil was a deliberate collector pitch, not a monetary one. Alan D'Estrehan's involvement places it within a small circle of designers working the Caribbean commemorative market at the time.