5 Pounds - Elizabeth II 2004 Summer Olympics - Italy

Gibraltar's prolific commemorative program of the early 2000s produced dozens of Olympic-themed issues, many licensed through the same intermediary houses supplying coins to multiple small jurisdictions simultaneously. This piece honors the Athens 2004 Games with Italy as the subject — an odd pairing, since Gibraltar itself sent no athletes to Athens and has no Olympic committee recognized by the IOC.

The selective color application was applied post-strike, a technique that disqualifies these pieces from many traditional numismatic collections but drove strong retail demand in the gift and souvenir market for which they were largely intended.