500 Tögrög Marco Polo

Marco Polo's account of Mongolia — recorded in Il Milione after his travels through the Mongol Empire in the 1270s — remains one of the few contemporary European descriptions of Kublai Khan's court at Khanbaliq. Polo described paper money backed by the Khan's authority with obvious astonishment, noting that refusal to accept it was punishable by death. It is a minor irony that Mongolia now issues silver commemoratives in his name.