500 Tögrög Wild horse

Mongolia's wild horse coinage of the 1990s emerged during a period of acute economic contraction following the collapse of Soviet subsidies, which had funded roughly a third of the Mongolian state budget through the late 1980s. The Bank of Mongolia turned aggressively to collector issues during this decade as a hard-currency revenue stream — the domestic tögrög was largely unconvertible and inflation had gutted purchasing power.

KM#133 is part of a wildlife series that coincided with renewed international attention to the Przewalski's horse reintroduction program, which by 1996 had returned captive-bred animals to Hustai Nuruu after the species had been extinct in the wild for decades.