Catalog
5000 Francs CFA Lunar Meteorite Mali
| Issuer | Mali (1960-date) |
|---|---|
| Year | 2015 |
| Type | Non-circulating coin |
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| Reverse description | The convex reverse is entirely devoted to an extraordinarily detailed, high-relief depiction of the lunar surface, with numerous impact craters of varying sizes rendered with exceptional naturalism across the entire field. At the centre of the composition, a genuine fragment of the NWA 8599 lunar meteorite is inset into a recessed cavity, physically embedding an authentic piece of the Moon into the coin. The curved legends LUNAR METEORITE, MALI – NWA 8599, FROM THE MOON TO THE EARTH, and the date 2015 are distributed around the periphery of the field, following the curvature of the design. |
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| Reverse lettering | LUNAR METEORITE MALI NWA 8599 FROM THE MOON TO THE EARTH 2015 |
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| Additional information |
Mali has no meaningful tradition of commemorative silver coinage and issues pieces like this almost exclusively through licensing arrangements with European minting intermediaries — in this case almost certainly a product of the Coin Invest Trust pipeline, which has produced the bulk of large-format African novelty issues since the 2000s. The BCEAO, the West African monetary authority that actually governs the CFA franc zone, has no involvement in these collector releases; they circulate in name only.
The meteorite fragment embedded in this coin is genuine lunar material, classified NWA (Northwest Africa) — recovered from the Sahara, where dark fusion-crusted stones are periodically found by nomadic collectors working the reg and erg of Mali, Algeria, and Morocco.