500 Shillings Pope John Paul II

Issued shortly after John Paul II's death in April 2005, this piece belongs to a wave of commemoratives released by Somalia — a country with no functioning central government at the time — through licensing arrangements with European coin distributors, primarily based in the Netherlands. Somalia's nominal issuing authority was exploited throughout the 1990s and 2000s to produce collectibles with no domestic circulation whatsoever.

KM#130 is silver-plated copper-nickel, a detail that separates it sharply from the .999 silver issues in parallel series marketed to the same buyers.