10 Centésimos

Panama's first national coinage was struck in 1904, the same year the country signed the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty ceding control of the Canal Zone to the United States. The new republic contracted the Philadelphia Mint to produce the entire inaugural series, a practical arrangement given Panama had no mint of its own and the U.S. had just engineered its independence from Colombia the previous November.

The Balboa was pegged at exact parity with the U.S. dollar from the outset, a monetary arrangement that has never been formally dissolved.