1/2 Boliviano / 50 Centavos

Bolivia's silver coinage of this period was struck under contract at the Potosí mint, once the most prolific silver producer in the colonial world but by the early twentieth century a facility struggling to meet even modest domestic demand. The 1909 issue falls within a short window of transitional monetary policy as Bolivia worked to align its fractional silver with regional Latin American standards following decades of monetary instability tied to the collapse of the silver price internationally after 1873.

KM#177 is frequently found with uneven luster across the fields — a known characteristic of Potosí striking technique at this date, not post-mint damage.