300 Dollars - Elizabeth II Independence - Coat of Arms

Dominica's independence from Britain came on 3 November 1978, making this one of the few gold commemorative issues tied to an independence event that occurred within the same calendar year as striking — the turnaround was tight. The island had been a British Associated State since 1967, and full sovereignty came later than most of its Caribbean neighbors.

The .900 fine standard used here follows a British Commonwealth convention that persisted well past metrication, rather than the .999 fine that most sovereign mints had already adopted for commemorative gold by the late 1970s.