5000 Shillings Amerigo Vespucci

Somalia's 1990s commemorative program was essentially a licensing operation — the Central Bank contracted foreign mints to produce collector coins bearing Somali authority at a time when the Somali state had functionally collapsed. By 1998, Mogadishu was divided between warlords, and no functioning national government existed. The coins were sold directly into the European and American collector markets, never touching Somali soil in any meaningful quantity.

Vespucci's selection is historically defensible — his letters describing the New World as a distinct continent, rather than Asian coastline, prompted cartographer Waldseemüller to apply the name "America" in 1507.