100 Dollars Sailing Ships

This is a legal tender commemorative, not a circulating banknote — issued by Antigua and Barbuda in the first year after independence from associated statehood, when the newly sovereign government had strong incentive to produce prestige items for the collector market. The .999 silver substrate pressed against 23-karat gold foil was a format used by several small Caribbean and Pacific issuers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, almost none of which saw any handling outside of presentation folders.

D'Estrehan's name appears on a handful of these Caribbean foil issues from the same period, suggesting a cottage industry of sorts around commemorative legal tender production in the region. Mintage figures for this series have never been reliably published.