20 Roubles Independence

Transnistria — the narrow strip of land between the Dniester River and the Moldovan-Ukrainian border — declared independence from Moldova in 1990, triggering a brief but bloody war in 1992 that left roughly a thousand dead. No United Nations member state recognizes its sovereignty. The Transnistrian Republican Bank nonetheless issues gold and silver collectibles aggressively, largely as a hard-currency revenue mechanism for a government that runs on Russian subsidies and Soviet nostalgia.

The two-troy-ounce gold format places this squarely in the bullion-collectible category rather than anything approaching circulating coinage.