1/2 Balboa

Panama has never operated its own central bank — the dollar has circulated freely alongside the balboa since 1904, making Panamanian coinage purely a matter of fractional convenience rather than monetary policy. The half balboa in this clad composition replaced the earlier 0.900 silver issues as silver prices made those coins worth more melted than spent, a fate that eliminated most pre-1966 examples from circulation within months of the switch.