500 Afghanis Deinotherium

Afghanistan issued this coin in 1993 — during active civil war, with Kabul under rocket fire and no functioning central bank to speak of. The prehistoric wildlife series it belongs to was produced entirely for the international collector market, never intended to circulate domestically. The Deinotherium, a massive proboscidean that diverged from true elephants roughly 30 million years ago, survived into the Pliocene before disappearing from the fossil record entirely.