50 Kip Asian Elephant

Laos issued a series of wildlife-themed silver coins through the early 1990s largely as foreign currency earners rather than circulating money — the domestic economy ran on kip notes, and these pieces were sold almost exclusively to overseas collectors through international distributors. The Asian elephant had particular significance as a national symbol dating to the old Kingdom of Lan Xang, the "Kingdom of a Million Elephants," though by 1993 wild populations in the country were already under severe pressure from habitat loss.

KM#48 is sometimes conflated with related elephant issues from neighboring Myanmar struck in the same period, but the Lao series is distinguishable by distributor documentation and packaging.