10 Dollars Ringed Kingfisher, Copper-Nickel

Belize's dollar coinage of the early 1980s was produced by the Royal Mint under contract following independence from Britain in 1981, with the new Central Bank working to establish a distinctly Belizean numismatic identity. The Ringed Kingfisher series sat at the high end of the circulating denomination range but was never intended as a workhorse coin — pieces this size saw limited everyday use in a country where the economy ran largely on smaller fractions.

KM#71 is occasionally found with uneven cupro-nickel blanks from this period, a documented issue with Royal Mint contract strikes for smaller Caribbean issuers during the early 1980s.