100 Shillings Elephant, Colorized

Somalia's elephant coin series, launched in the 1990s, occupies an unusual corner of the modern bullion market — the coins are legal tender of a state that has had no functioning central monetary authority for most of their production run. The Somali federal government did not mint them; they were produced under licensing arrangements by European private mints, principally the Bavarian State Mint in Munich, targeting the collector and bullion markets rather than any domestic circulation.

The 2012 colorized variant was applied after striking, a finishing technique that disqualifies these pieces from most bullion grading services and keeps them firmly in the novelty collector segment.