5 Pesos Sugar Cane

Cuba's hard-currency commemorative program of the late 1970s and 1980s was explicitly designed to earn foreign exchange, not circulate domestically. These silver issues were sold abroad through state export channels while Cuban citizens had no legal access to them. The Sugar Cane piece belongs to a run of thematic issues celebrating Cuban agriculture and industry during a period when sugar still accounted for roughly 75% of the country's export revenue — a dependence the Revolution had promised to diversify but never did.