10 Balboas

Panama's 1941 paper currency issue was produced under uniquely constrained circumstances. The Banco Central de Emisión had been chartered specifically to challenge the country's longstanding monetary arrangement with the United States, under which the Balboa existed as a legal unit but no Panamanian paper currency circulated — the dollar filled that role entirely. President Arnulfo Arias pushed the enabling legislation through in October 1941, and notes were printed and delivered almost immediately.

The government that authorized them was gone within days. Arias was overthrown on 9 October 1941 while travelling abroad, and the incoming administration moved quickly to suppress the entire issue. Most notes were withdrawn and destroyed before reaching circulation, making survivors from this series genuinely rare across all denominations.