2000 Dollars Millennium

Issued to mark the millennium by a country that had spent much of the 1990s clawing back from economic collapse — Guyana's GDP per capita had fallen so sharply during the 1980s under Desmond Hoyte's austerity programs that a commemorative $2000 face value was essentially theatrical. The IMF-supervised recovery was still incomplete when this piece was struck.

The copper-nickel composition distinguishes it from KM#53, the silver version struck for collector markets. Circulating commemoratives at this weight and diameter from Caribbean and South American issuers were frequently hoarded immediately upon release.