500 Afghanis XXVI Summer Olympic Games, Atlanta 1996

Afghanistan issued this piece in 1995 under the Rabbani government, at a moment when Kabul was actively being shelled and the Taliban were advancing on the capital. The Olympics sponsorship was a revenue arrangement brokered through a foreign licensing intermediary — the Afghan state had no meaningful participation in the Atlanta Games and no functional mint infrastructure of its own. These were struck abroad and sold into the collector market.