Ecuador's small-denomination coinage of the 1970s shifted to copper-nickel clad steel as global silver prices and raw material costs made older compositions economically untenable — a pattern repeated across Latin America during the same decade. The clad steel transition for this type occurred incrementally across several compositional variants, which is why KM#76 carries multiple suffixed varieties cataloged within a short span of years.
Ecuador's small-denomination coinage of the 1970s shifted to copper-nickel clad steel as global silver prices and raw material costs made older compositions economically untenable — a pattern repeated across Latin America during the same decade. The clad steel transition for this type occurred incrementally across several compositional variants, which is why KM#76 carries multiple suffixed varieties cataloged within a short span of years.