The Convair 990 Coronado was a commercial failure almost by design — Convair stretched the 880 airframe and promised American Airlines speeds exceeding 600 mph, then spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to meet contractual performance guarantees that the aircraft could never quite satisfy. Only 37 were ever built. Benin's aviation-themed commemorative series issued through the early 2000s drew heavily on subjects with no particular connection to the country, outsourced through European coin marketing firms targeting thematic collectors rather than Beninese circulation.
The Convair 990 Coronado was a commercial failure almost by design — Convair stretched the 880 airframe and promised American Airlines speeds exceeding 600 mph, then spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to meet contractual performance guarantees that the aircraft could never quite satisfy. Only 37 were ever built. Benin's aviation-themed commemorative series issued through the early 2000s drew heavily on subjects with no particular connection to the country, outsourced through European coin marketing firms targeting thematic collectors rather than Beninese circulation.