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500 Manat Pallas Cat
| Issuer | Turkmenistan |
|---|---|
| Year | 1996 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 500 Manat (500 TMM) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Reverse description | A Pallas's cat (Felis manul, also known as the manul) depicted in full body, crouching low over a rocky ground scattered with pebbles, facing left with a naturalistic and detailed rendering of its dense fur. Mountain peaks appear in the upper left field and stylised steppe vegetation in the upper right, evoking the animal's Central Asian habitat. The species name FELIS MANUL PALLAS arcs across the upper field, the denomination 500 MANAT appears at the top centre, the date 1996 is inscribed in the lower left field, and the common name MANUL appears as an exergual legend at the base. |
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| Additional information |
Turkmenistan issued this coin just five years after declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, during a period when the newly sovereign state was aggressively minting commemorative silver for the international collector market — a strategy common among post-Soviet republics with little hard currency reserves but access to established minting infrastructure. The Pallas cat (Otocolobus manul), native to the Central Asian steppe, was a deliberate choice to signal distinct national identity separate from Soviet-era iconography.
The 500 Manat denomination was essentially nominal; by 1996 Turkmenistan's currency had been so devalued that this face value bore no meaningful relationship to the coin's silver content or market price.