SRV 500 Dong

From my thirty years handling Vietnamese coins, the most intriguing fact about what might be the SRV 500 Dong is its potential use of gold planchets sourced from recycled foreign bullion, a practical move amid Vietnam's economic reforms in the early 1990s. If this commemorative issue existed as described, it likely marked national milestones like the country's postwar recovery, though records are spotty and I've never confirmed one in person. Mintage figures? Unknown—probably lost in bureaucratic shifts or simply unrecorded. Some specimens, if they turn up, show crude edges from hurried striking, a nod to the era's resource constraints. That said, I'm not convinced a gold 500 Dong was ever produced; Vietnam's commemoratives typically favored higher denominations for precious metals, and this one feels like a rumor. Perhaps it was a prototype or a mislabeled variant, but I'd need to see it to say more.