125 000 Gulden Millennium

Suriname's central bank issued this piece to mark the turn of the millennium, a moment the young republic — independent from the Netherlands only since 1975 — chose to commemorate in gold despite the country being in the grip of a catastrophic currency crisis. By 2000, hyperinflation had so decimated the Surinamese guilder that 125,000 of them represented a denomination that had become almost meaningless in daily commerce. The coin's face value was nominal fiction the day it was struck.

The .585 fineness — 14-karat gold — is characteristic of Dutch-influenced monetary tradition in the region.