100 Soʻm World

Issued in the early years of Uzbek independence, this coin appeared while the som itself was still struggling — the currency had launched in 1994 as a transitional measure and spent much of the late 1990s under severe depreciation pressure tied to commodity export restrictions and an inconvertible exchange rate. A silver commemorative denomination of 100 som carried considerable irony at a time when the circulating currency was losing purchasing power steadily against the dollar.