5 Pounds Reopening of Suez Canal

Egypt issued this coin to mark the reopening of the Suez Canal in June 1975, nearly eight years after it was closed following the catastrophic defeat of the Six-Day War in June 1967. The Canal had sat unusable — blocked by sunken vessels, live ordnance, and the political deadlock of the War of Attrition — until a joint Egyptian-American clearance operation finally reopened it to shipping. Sadat framed the reopening as a national resurrection, staging the ceremony personally aboard a destroyer.

The coin itself was struck the following year, at .875 fineness — a standard inherited from earlier Egyptian commemorative gold issues rather than the .900 fine used by most contemporary sovereign coinage.