10 Pesos Iglesia San Lazaro

San Lázaro is the patron saint of the sick and poor, and his church in Santo Domingo — one of the oldest surviving colonial structures in the Americas — served historically as a leper colony chapel on the outskirts of the original city walls. The 2000 issue falls within a Dominican commemorative silver program that drew heavily on colonial ecclesiastical architecture, most of it concentrated in the UNESCO-designated Colonial City of Santo Domingo founded in 1498.

At 2.45 grams of .9999 fine silver, the striking weight is unusually light for a commemorative, suggesting a piece intended more for the collector market than any ceremonial presentation context.