500 Afghanis 1998 World Cup

Issued under the Taliban government, which had seized Kabul in 1996 and controlled the Afghan mint by the time this coin was produced. The irony is considerable: a regime that banned television, music, and most public recreation authorized a silver commemorative celebrating the world's most-watched sporting event. These were never intended for domestic circulation — they were struck explicitly for the international collector market, a common revenue strategy for cash-starved governments throughout the 1990s.