The Caribbean Development Bank, established in 1970 and headquartered in Barbados, was created to channel development finance into the smaller economies of the region that the World Bank largely bypassed. Belize — still transitioning out of British Honduras status, which it formally shed with independence in 1981 — issued this piece a year before that transition, making it an unusual commemorative: a not-yet-fully-independent nation celebrating a regional institution it had joined as a dependent territory.
The .500 fineness reflects a deliberate cost calculation common to Commonwealth commemoratives of the period, when rising silver prices pushed many mints toward debased alloys rather than abandoning silver entirely.
The Caribbean Development Bank, established in 1970 and headquartered in Barbados, was created to channel development finance into the smaller economies of the region that the World Bank largely bypassed. Belize — still transitioning out of British Honduras status, which it formally shed with independence in 1981 — issued this piece a year before that transition, making it an unusual commemorative: a not-yet-fully-independent nation celebrating a regional institution it had joined as a dependent territory.
The .500 fineness reflects a deliberate cost calculation common to Commonwealth commemoratives of the period, when rising silver prices pushed many mints toward debased alloys rather than abandoning silver entirely.