5 Pounds Refloating the Ship

Egypt has issued commemorative five-pound silver pieces with some regularity since the 1970s, many tied to infrastructure and national development themes. This 2022 piece — "Refloating the Ship" — almost certainly commemorates the refloating of the Ever Given, the container vessel that blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March 2021 after running aground in a single-lane stretch near Kilometer 151. The grounding halted an estimated $9.6 billion in daily global trade and prompted Egypt to accelerate plans for widening additional sections of the canal.

The .720 silver standard has been Egypt's preferred alloy for domestic commemoratives for decades.