Zambia's wildlife coin program of the late 1990s and early 2000s was produced primarily for the collector export market — these pieces saw no meaningful domestic circulation, and the Bank of Zambia used the series as a foreign currency earner rather than a monetary instrument. The .859 fineness is deliberately non-standard, a cost-reducing measure common among third-party-minted commemoratives of this period where the issuing authority had limited control over production specifications.
Zambia's wildlife coin program of the late 1990s and early 2000s was produced primarily for the collector export market — these pieces saw no meaningful domestic circulation, and the Bank of Zambia used the series as a foreign currency earner rather than a monetary instrument. The .859 fineness is deliberately non-standard, a cost-reducing measure common among third-party-minted commemoratives of this period where the issuing authority had limited control over production specifications.