50 Vatu Olympic Games 1996

Vanuatu's participation in the 1996 Atlanta Games marked only the Pacific nation's fourth appearance at a Summer Olympics, having sent its first team to Los Angeles in 1984 — the same year the country issued its earliest commemorative coinage. These Olympic silver issues were produced well ahead of the Games under a licensing arrangement common to small-nation commemoratives of the period, where the issuing authority had no meaningful connection to actual athletic participation and production was typically contracted to overseas mints.

The two-year gap between strike date and the event it commemorates is worth noting for registry purposes.