15 000 Kip Year of the Horse

Laos adopted the lunar new year coinage format in the late 1990s largely as a hard-currency export product — these pieces were never intended for domestic circulation in a country where the kip traded at roughly 10,000 to the dollar. The 15,000 kip face value was nominal at best, set above the melt value of the silver but well below what the coins fetched on the collector market abroad.