500 Tenge Balkhash Tiger

Kazakhstan's "Red Book" wildlife series, launched by the National Bank in the mid-2000s, drew directly from the country's official list of endangered species — the Caspian tiger, however, had already been functionally extinct for decades by the time this coin was struck. The last confirmed sightings in Kazakhstan date to the 1970s, near the Ili River delta feeding into Balkhash. The coin's subject, then, is essentially an elegy.

The series was produced at the Kazakhstan Mint in Ust-Kamenogorsk, which had only gained full independent minting capability in the 1990s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.