30 Dollars Underwater Treasures

One of several gold foil novelty notes issued by Caribbean governments in the early 1980s, this piece was never legal tender in any meaningful transactional sense — it was produced for the collector market, capitalizing on the brief international fashion for foil-laminated "commemorative currency" that swept through small island jurisdictions during that period. Antigua & Barbuda, newly independent in 1981, was among the first to issue under its own name rather than as part of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Authority.

The gold foil construction makes these notoriously prone to delamination along the edges with age.