1000 Kip Gibbon

Laos produced a substantial number of wildlife-themed silver issues through the 1990s, most struck by foreign mints and aimed squarely at the collector market rather than domestic circulation. The gibbon series falls into this category — these coins were never intended to pass through Lao hands as currency.

The northern white-cheeked gibbon depicted on this type was already under severe pressure from deforestation and hunting in the mid-1990s, and Laos held some of the last viable habitat. Whether the issue was coordinated with any conservation effort is undocumented.