50 Dollars 1996 Olympics

Nauru — a phosphate-stripped island of roughly 10,000 people with no meaningful gold mining tradition — issued this piece as a frankly commercial venture, one of dozens of small Pacific nation coinages produced through the 1990s primarily for the collector and investor market rather than any domestic circulation. The 1996 Atlanta Games generated a flood of such issues from issuing authorities with no connection to the Games whatsoever. Legal tender status was nominal at best.