The designs on these coins are older than the currency itself: groundnuts and the crocodile appeared on Gambian money as early as 1966, in the days of the pound, while the set brings together coins dated 1998 and 2016. For half a century the same images passed from one denomination to another and outlived three eras of Gambian history.

The reverses are the work of the British sculptor Michael Rizzello. For the 1966 coins with the portrait of Elizabeth II he drew groundnuts for the 6 pence and the crocodile for the 4 shillings; in 1971, when the dalasi replaced the pound, these designs moved to the bututs and the dalasi bearing the profile of President Dawda Jawara. After the 1994 coup the obverse changed to the national coat of arms from 1998, while Rizzello’s reverses stayed in place.

The set holds all six denominations: 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 bututs and 1 dalasi. Besides the groundnuts and the crocodile there are a sailing boat, the double-spurred francolin, the oil palm and a domestic ox. The dalasi is seven-sided, a shape it took in 1987 following the British 50 pence. The arms show lions with an axe and a hoe above the motto «PROGRESS PEACE PROSPERITY».

The coat-of-arms type begun in 1998 continued to be struck in later years, so the set links two dates of a single series. It suits a collection of modern African coins as well as a thematic one: six coins hold plants, a bird, a domestic and a wild animal, and a ship.

UNC grade: the coins have not circulated, there is no wear and the mint lustre is intact; only minor storage marks are possible. Some of these denominations are still used in everyday payments in The Gambia, and here they appear just as they left the mint.

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