50 Dollars - Elizabeth II Disabled Persons, Piedfort

The Eastern Caribbean Currency Authority became the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank in 1983, making this 1981 issue one of the final commemoratives struck under the preceding institutional framework. The piedfort format — double the standard planchet thickness — was rarely employed by Caribbean issuing authorities, and this example appears to be the only piedfort in the entire ECCB series. It was struck to mark the United Nations International Year of Disabled Persons, a global initiative that generated commemorative coinage from dozens of issuing states in 1981.