Issued to mark the twentieth anniversary of Aruba's Status Aparte — the 1986 separation from the Netherlands Antilles that granted the island autonomous country status within the Kingdom of the Netherlands — this gold piece was part of a small commemorative program that attracted buyers almost entirely from the collector market rather than circulation. Aruba's push for full independence, originally scheduled for 1996, was formally suspended in 1994 at the island's own request, a reversal with few modern parallels in Caribbean political history.
Issued to mark the twentieth anniversary of Aruba's Status Aparte — the 1986 separation from the Netherlands Antilles that granted the island autonomous country status within the Kingdom of the Netherlands — this gold piece was part of a small commemorative program that attracted buyers almost entirely from the collector market rather than circulation. Aruba's push for full independence, originally scheduled for 1996, was formally suspended in 1994 at the island's own request, a reversal with few modern parallels in Caribbean political history.