500 Kyats Year of the Tiger

Myanmar issued this coin in 1998 under the military junta then governing as the State Peace and Development Council, a regime that had suppressed the 1990 election results and kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. The Tiger issue belongs to a broader series of Lunar New Year commemoratives produced for the export and collector market rather than domestic circulation — hard currency the junta needed badly under international sanctions pressure.

The 1998 Year of the Tiger corresponds to the 60th year cycle Tiger in the Burmese calendar, a recurrence that carries particular weight in Theravada Buddhist cultures across the region.