Released 7/2/2000

1931 1 balboa Panama. 90% silver, 26.73 grams First year type. 100 Centesimos = 1 Balboa Panama was visited by Christopher Columbus in 1502 during his fourth voyage to America, and explored by Vasco Nuņez de Balboa in 1513. His profile in dress armor is shown on the obverse. The reverse shows Liberty standing, with a message on a scroll  "PRO MVNDI BENEFICIO", FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE WORLD, referring to the Panama Canal, and a fasces on the left hand. The fasces (Latin, "bundles"), was an ancient Roman symbol of the higher magistrates' authority, consisting of a bundle of wooden rods that enclosed an ax. The fasces were carried ahead of the magistrates by officials known as lictors. The rods, usually birch but sometimes elm, were bound together by a scarlet thong, and the head of the ax protruded from the bundle. The rods were symbolic of the power of punishment; the ax was symbolic of the power of life and death. Panama's official monetary unit is the balboa, whose value is fixed at one U.S. dollar. Panama has no paper currency of its own; the only paper money is the U.S. dollar