5 Dollars Shinkansen 500

Liberia has no railways and no geographic connection to Japan's bullet train network, but its central bank spent the 2000s and early 2010s issuing an extensive series of commemorative silver pieces honoring foreign transportation icons — a common revenue strategy among small nations whose coins are designed, minted, and marketed almost entirely in Europe for the collector trade. The 500 Series Shinkansen, introduced by JNR in 1996 and operated by JR West, was at the time the fastest passenger train in regular service anywhere in the world, briefly holding a 300 km/h operational speed record.