20 Balboas Vasco Nunez de Balboa

Panama's large-format silver issues of the late 1970s were tied directly to the political atmosphere surrounding the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which transferred canal jurisdiction and gave the Panamanian government both the platform and the revenue motive to issue high-value numismatic pieces for the international collector market. These were never intended to circulate — the domestic economy ran largely on U.S. dollars — and production was oriented almost entirely toward foreign buyers and souvenir demand.

Balboa himself crossed the isthmus in 1513, becoming the first European to sight the Pacific from the Americas. He was beheaded by his own father-in-law, the governor Pedrarias Dávila, in 1519.