20 Shillings Independence

Somalia's first gold coinage was authorized to mark the fifth anniversary of independence from the joint British-Italian trusteeship administration that had governed the territory since 1950. The issue was short-lived by design — produced across just two years before the civilian government that commissioned it was itself overthrown in the 1969 coup led by Siad Barre.

The .900 fineness places it in line with continental European gold standards of the period rather than British sovereign practice, a deliberate signal of Somalia's alignment with broader international monetary norms at a moment when the new republic was aggressively courting foreign investment and recognition.