5 Cedis Tattoo-Art - Year of the Monkey

Ghana's "Tattoo-Art" series applied genuine tattoo ink beneath lacquer directly onto the coin's surface — a finishing technique more common to novelty issues from private mints than sovereign programs, and one that makes long-term preservation genuinely unpredictable. The Bank of Ghana authorized several such issues through European distributors around 2016, targeting the collector market rather than any domestic monetary function.

The Monkey corresponds to 2016 in the Chinese lunar calendar. Ghana has no cultural connection to that calendar, making this a purely commercial issue aimed at Asian and international collector demand.