50 000 Drams Tigran the Great

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic declared independence from Azerbaijan in 1991, though it has never received recognition from any United Nations member state — including Armenia, whose military effectively backed its existence. Issuing coinage was a deliberate act of statecraft, and this 1998 series, denominated in drams and invoking Tigran the Great as a symbol of Armenian imperial antiquity, was produced primarily for export sale rather than domestic circulation.

At 155.5 grams of .999 silver, this is a five-troy-ounce piece — a format used almost exclusively in the collector bullion market of the late 1990s.