Palau began issuing themed collector dollars in 1994 under a licensing arrangement that turned the tiny Pacific nation into a prolific vehicle for novelty coinage marketed almost entirely to Western collectors. The "Shipwreck" issue belongs to a run of these pieces with no connection to Palauan monetary history — they were never intended to circulate and were produced by contract mints on behalf of distributors.
KM#59 is copper-nickel, which places it in the budget tier of this series; contemporaneous Palauan issues in silver were struck for the same themes simultaneously.
Palau began issuing themed collector dollars in 1994 under a licensing arrangement that turned the tiny Pacific nation into a prolific vehicle for novelty coinage marketed almost entirely to Western collectors. The "Shipwreck" issue belongs to a run of these pieces with no connection to Palauan monetary history — they were never intended to circulate and were produced by contract mints on behalf of distributors.
KM#59 is copper-nickel, which places it in the budget tier of this series; contemporaneous Palauan issues in silver were struck for the same themes simultaneously.