8000 Kip - Savang Vatthana Coronation

Issued to commemorate the coronation of Savang Vatthana, the last king of Laos — though by 1971 the ceremony was largely ceremonial theater. The Pathet Lao had been consolidating power through the 1960s with North Vietnamese backing, and Savang Vatthana's authority over much of his own country was already fictitious. He would abdicate in 1975 under duress, was subsequently interned in a re-education camp in Hua Phan province, and almost certainly died there in the early 1980s, though the Lao PDR never confirmed the circumstances.

The coronation coinage was produced for collectors and foreign sale rather than domestic circulation.