500 Afghanis William Shakespeare

Afghanistan issued a series of foreign-theme commemoratives throughout the 1990s under Da Afghanistan Bank, largely as a hard-currency revenue exercise targeting Western collector markets rather than domestic circulation. The Shakespeare piece belongs to that program. None of these coins saw use inside Afghanistan — the country was under Taliban control from 1996, and silver commemoratives denominated in afghanis had no practical relationship to an economy running on barter and Pakistani rupees.