100 Pesos Juan de la Cosa

Juan de la Cosa was the Basque cartographer who sailed with Columbus on the first two voyages and in 1500 produced the earliest surviving European map to depict the Americas — a document now held at the Museo Naval in Madrid. Cuba issued this piece as part of a broader commemorative gold program tied to the approaching quincentenary of Columbus's 1492 landfall, a theme that generated dozens of issues across Latin American and Spanish mints throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The 31.1g fine gold specification places this squarely in the one-troy-ounce bullion-commemorative category that was commercially fashionable in that decade.