1/2 Boliviano / 50 Centavos

Bolivia's silver coinage of this period was minted almost exclusively at Potosí — the same mountain that had supplied Spanish imperial silver for three centuries — though by the 1870s the mines were producing under Bolivian national concessions rather than colonial extraction. The 1873 introduction of the decimal system replaced the old real-based denominations, and this piece was central to that transition.

Production collapsed after the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), in which Bolivia lost its entire coastal territory to Chile. Cut off from Pacific port access and with public finances severely disrupted, mint output from Potosí dropped sharply through the 1880s before partially recovering in the final decade of the type's run.