250 Maloti - Moshoeshoe II Moshoeshoe I

Issued to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Basotho nation by Moshoeshoe I, who consolidated disparate Sotho-speaking clans onto the mountain stronghold of Thaba Bosiu in the early 1830s — a defensive masterstroke that allowed his people to survive the Difaqane, the catastrophic regional upheaval triggered by Zulu expansionism. The 1980 issue appeared under his direct descendant and then-reigning monarch Moshoeshoe II, who had himself been deposed and reinstated once already by that point.

Struck at .917 fineness to AGW specifications consistent with South African Krugerrand-adjacent sizing — not coincidental, given Lesotho's complete geographic enclosure within South Africa and its monetary entanglement with the rand prior to the maloti's introduction in 1980.