100 Roubles Olympic Games 2012. Handball

Belarus issued a substantial series of high-relief silver kilo-weight pieces ahead of the 2012 London Olympics, of which this handball entry is one. Handball rarely appears on Olympic coinage — the sport, though a fixture of the Summer Games since 1972 for men and 1976 for women, is consistently overlooked by mint programs that default to athletics, gymnastics, and swimming.

The National Bank of Belarus produced these as legal tender collectibles with no circulation intent whatsoever, a financing mechanism that became increasingly important to Minsk as the Belarusian ruble suffered severe depreciation around 2011.