1000 Shillings Elephant

Somalia's Elephant series occupies an unusual corner of the bullion market: the country functions almost entirely as a licensing authority, with the coins designed and distributed by the German firm Geiger Edelmetalle under a long-running arrangement that gives the series its German-minted precision despite its East African issuer. The program has run continuously since 2004, making it one of the longer-lived African bullion series in circulation.

The .9999 fineness — four nines rather than the three-nine standard of many sovereign gold issues — was a deliberate commercial positioning choice to compete directly with the Canadian Maple Leaf.