1 Dollar Aurelian Aureus

Palau's micro-gold program, launched in the late 2000s, targeted the collector market for fractional gold at a time when spot prices were climbing sharply toward their 2011 peak. These half-gram pieces were never intended for circulation and exist purely as collector vehicles, issued under Palauan authority by an arrangement that gives the island nation nominal coinage rights it would otherwise have little use for.

The Aurelian aureus it references was Rome's primary gold denomination, stabilized by Emperor Aurelian's monetary reforms of 274 AD after decades of debased coinage had destabilized the third-century economy.