1/10 Balboa

Panama has no central bank and no currency of its own — the balboa exists only as a unit of account, with U.S. dollars serving as the actual circulating medium since 1904. These silver fractional pieces were struck primarily to satisfy transactional demand for small change, since U.S. coins of equivalent denomination circulated interchangeably alongside them at par. The arrangement stems directly from the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which granted the U.S. sweeping monetary authority over the Canal Zone and beyond.

By 1961, silver content in U.S. subsidiary coinage was already under political pressure in Washington — the Coinage Act eliminating silver from dimes was just three years away.