10 Dollars Neuschwanstein

Palau has issued collector silver under its own authority since 1992, a consequence of the Compact of Free Association with the United States, which grants the island nation full sovereignty over its own coinage despite using the US dollar as circulating currency. The Neuschwanstein issue belongs to a long-running series of Palauan commemoratives targeting the European collector market, where demand for romanticized Bavarian imagery runs reliably high.

Neuschwanstein itself was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1869 and was never finished during his lifetime. Ludwig died under disputed circumstances in 1886 — officially by drowning, widely suspected otherwise — just days after being declared mentally unfit to rule.