5 Centavos

This issue spans one of the most turbulent stretches in Dominican history, running through the entirety of Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship and well into the fragile democratic period that followed his 1961 assassination. Trujillo had centralized the national mint and monetary system as instruments of political control, and the continuity of this denomination across regime change and American-backed transition governments reflects just how little the everyday coinage infrastructure shifted despite the upheaval above it.

The KM#18 type ran for nearly four decades with minimal modification — unusual longevity for a circulating minor denomination in Latin America during this period.