The Pueblo Viejo deposit in the Cordillera Central was known to contain gold and silver for decades before it became economically viable to extract. By the mid-1970s, the Dominican state-controlled mining operation had finally begun pulling silver from the ore body at scale, and this issue was struck to mark that first commercial extraction — a government decision as much as a commemorative one, tying national prestige to a resource that would later become one of the largest open-pit gold mines in the Western Hemisphere.
The Pueblo Viejo deposit in the Cordillera Central was known to contain gold and silver for decades before it became economically viable to extract. By the mid-1970s, the Dominican state-controlled mining operation had finally begun pulling silver from the ore body at scale, and this issue was struck to mark that first commercial extraction — a government decision as much as a commemorative one, tying national prestige to a resource that would later become one of the largest open-pit gold mines in the Western Hemisphere.