25 Shillings Nelson Mandela

Somalia's Central Bank issued this piece during a period when the country had no functioning central government — the Transitional National Government wasn't even established until August 2000, and exercised no real monetary authority. These coins were almost certainly produced by a private mint on contract and never meaningfully circulated within Somalia. They were sold directly into the collector market, a common arrangement for Somali issues of this period that has drawn sustained skepticism from numismatists regarding their status as legitimate state coinage.