Palau gained the right to issue its own coinage under the Compact of Free Association with the United States, which took effect in 1986. This palladium essai from 1992 predates Palau's formal admission to the United Nations by a year and sits at the very beginning of the country's numismatic program. Essai strikes of this type were produced in extremely limited quantities for collector and institutional distribution, never intended for circulation — palladium itself had only recently begun appearing in numismatic issues globally, with Russia's Ballerina series having pioneered the format just a few years earlier.
Palau gained the right to issue its own coinage under the Compact of Free Association with the United States, which took effect in 1986. This palladium essai from 1992 predates Palau's formal admission to the United Nations by a year and sits at the very beginning of the country's numismatic program. Essai strikes of this type were produced in extremely limited quantities for collector and institutional distribution, never intended for circulation — palladium itself had only recently begun appearing in numismatic issues globally, with Russia's Ballerina series having pioneered the format just a few years earlier.