50 Pesos Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

Cuba's large-format silver issues of the 1990s were produced almost entirely for the export collector market, a deliberate hard-currency strategy by the Cuban state during the "Special Period" — the severe economic contraction that followed the Soviet Union's collapse and the elimination of its subsidies to Havana. Domestic circulation was never the intent.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, completed around 350 BC in what is now Bodrum, Turkey, gave the ancient world its generic word for monumental tombs. The structure was largely destroyed by earthquakes between the 11th and 15th centuries; fragments of its sculptural frieze are held by the British Museum.