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500 Liras Pope John Paul II
| Issuer | Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta |
|---|---|
| Year | 2003 |
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| Composition | Gold (.999) plated silver (.999) (Gold-plated on the portrait only) |
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| Obverse description | Selectively gold-plated draped bust of Pope John Paul II in left profile, rendered in high relief against a mirror-polished black field. The effigy depicts the Pope in full pontifical vestments with elaborately decorated cope. An inner beaded border frames the central device, with the curved legend JUBILAEUM A.D. 2000 arcing across the upper field and POPE JOHN PAUL II inscribed along the lower arc in Latin script. |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | JUBILAEUM A.D. 2000 POPE JOHN PAUL II |
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| Additional information |
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta issues coins under a legal framework that often surprises collectors: despite having no sovereign territory beyond its Rome headquarters since losing Malta to Napoleon in 1798, it retains recognized minting authority acknowledged by over a hundred states. These issues circulate nowhere and are produced entirely for the numismatic market.
The selective gold plating on the portrait — applied only to that area of an otherwise silver field — was a technique gaining commercial traction in commemorative issues of the early 2000s, borrowed largely from the Franklin Mint school of presentation coinage.