2000 Kip Sydney Olympics, 2000

Laos issued this piece under a licensing arrangement common among small nations in the late 1990s, when mints and coin marketing firms actively solicited governments to attach their names to Olympic commemoratives they had no practical connection to. Landlocked Laos sent no athletes to Sydney 2000 and had virtually no Olympic program at the time of striking.

The .585 fineness — 14-karat — places it firmly in the budget commemorative tier, struck for the collector market rather than circulation.