5 Pounds Tutankhamun

Egypt's commemorative silver program in the late 1990s leaned heavily on Pharaonic iconography for export appeal, with pieces like this one aimed squarely at the international collector market rather than domestic circulation. Tutankhamun remained the obvious anchor of that strategy — his tomb's discovery by Howard Carter in 1922 had generated Western fascination that showed no signs of cooling seven decades later.

The 1922 excavation itself was financed by Lord Carnarvon, who died less than five months after the tomb's opening — a coincidence that spawned the enduring "Curse of the Pharaohs" myth still generating press in 1999.