1 Balboa General Torrijos

Omar Torrijos died in a plane crash in July 1981, less than a year before this commemorative series began striking. The Panamanian government moved quickly to memorialize him — he had negotiated the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties that set the timetable for full canal transfer to Panama, the defining political achievement of his rule. Whether the crash was an accident remained disputed for decades, with Manuel Noriega among those later accused of arranging it.

KM#76 ran across three production years, unusual for a commemorative of this type.