The ancient world and the modern one face each other in San Marino’s 1999 annual set: the coins are arranged in pairs, and each pair shows one element through the eyes of the ancients and through ours.

The 10 lire shows the Earth as antiquity imagined it, the 20 lire the Earth today. The 50 lire is devoted to the sea of the ancient navigators, the 100 lire to the sea of our time. The ancient sky on the 200 lire appears with the stone circle of Stonehenge and the constellations, while today’s sky went to the bimetallic 500 lire.

The set closes with the bimetallic 1000 lire bearing a compass rose and the silver 5000 lire. There are eight coins in all, struck in Rome by the Italian State Mint and Polygraphic Institute.

UNC condition: never circulated, no wear, mint lustre retained. Less than three years remained before San Marino switched to the euro, so the 1999 set stands at the very end of a lira date run, and its running «then and now» pairing also makes it appealing for a collection on space and discovery.

VPcoins is a numismatic shop where coins from many countries are gathered in a single catalogue.