5 New Sheqalim Akko

Akko (Acre) had been a Crusader stronghold, an Ottoman provincial capital, and the city where Napoleon suffered his only significant battlefield defeat — repulsed in 1799 during a two-month siege that effectively ended his eastern ambitions. Israel's 1987 Holy Sites series used these gold issues to commemorate cities of layered historical weight, and Akko, with its intact Crusader halls still buried beneath the Ottoman city, was an obvious inclusion.

Frosted fields on these Bank of Israel gold commemoratives are frequently uneven across the run — a known characteristic of the series, not damage.