100 Escudos Papal visit, Gold

Pope John Paul II visited Cape Verde in January 1990 as part of a broader African tour, making it one of the few sub-Saharan island nations to receive a papal visit during his pontificate. The Banco de Cabo Verde issued this gold piece to commemorate the occasion — a relatively unusual move for a small island economy that had only established its own currency after independence from Portugal in 1975.

KM#25b designates the gold variant; silver and other metal strikings were produced under the same base reference, with the gold issue commanding a small but distinct collector premium driven largely by low mintage rather than any particular rarity of the type itself.