1 Dollar Clownfish

Palau's marine-themed collector series, launched in 1994, was one of the earliest sustained programs by a Pacific microstate to generate revenue through numismatic exports rather than circulation coinage. The country has no central bank of its own — it uses the U.S. dollar as its official currency — so these issues exist purely as legal tender in name, underwritten by a licensing arrangement with a foreign mint.

KM#71 belongs to a run of issues that coincided with heightened international interest in reef conservation, though the timing owed more to collector market demand than policy.