250 Kwacha Lizard Buzzard

The Lizard Buzzard (*Kaupifalco monogrammicus*) is a small accipiter-family raptor resident across sub-Saharan Africa, including Zambia's miombo woodlands. This 1994 issue belongs to a run of large-format silver pieces the Bank of Zambia commissioned during the early 1990s, a period when many African central banks turned to high-weight collector coinage as a hard-currency revenue stream — the face value was nominal against the silver content and the foreign collector premium both.

At 136 grams of .925 silver in a 63mm planchet, these were struck to impress rather than circulate. Zambia's kwacha was under significant inflationary pressure throughout this period.