25 Shillings Pope Blessing, multicolor

Somalia's Central Bank issued a series of novelty copper-nickel pieces in the early 2000s bearing subjects entirely unrelated to Somali history or culture — papal imagery, wildlife, and international figures among them. These were produced not for domestic circulation but for the international collector market, a revenue strategy adopted by several collapsed or weakened states during this period. Somalia's central government had functionally disintegrated after 1991, and the bank issuing these pieces exercised authority more on paper than in practice.

KM# 162 is part of that broader novelty output. The multicolor application was added after striking, a cold enamel or pad-printing process common to this category of issue.