5 Pounds Chemistry Department

Egypt issued this coin to mark the centenary of the Chemistry Department at Cairo University — or more precisely, what was then still the Egyptian University, founded in 1908. The institution's science faculties were built largely through European academic partnerships, with chemistry instruction modeled heavily on British and German laboratory traditions imported during the late colonial period.

The .720 fineness is characteristic of Egypt's commemorative silver output in the 1990s, a deliberate step down from sterling used to manage production costs during a decade of ongoing economic reform under IMF structural adjustment programs.