500 Dollars Notre-Dame

Palau's legal tender coinage program has operated largely as a collector bullion vehicle since the 1990s, with the republic's monetary arrangement with the United States giving it no practical need for domestic circulating gold. This piece belongs to a niche within that program — the "Tiffany Art" series — which began in 2005 and has paired .9999 gold with hand-set cathedral glass across a succession of Gothic European ecclesiastical subjects.

Notre-Dame de Paris sustained catastrophic fire damage in April 2019, and this 2021 issue was struck while the restoration effort was still in its earliest phase. The borosilicate-style glass insert in each piece is individually unique — no two are chromatically identical.