5 Centésimos

Panama has no central bank and issues no paper currency of its own — the U.S. dollar has served as the de facto national currency since the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903, a direct consequence of American interest in canal construction. Panamanian coins function purely as fractional change, with no higher-denomination coinage to speak of. The centésimo series exists entirely in the shadow of that arrangement.

KM#126 continued the long-running copper-nickel format established decades earlier, with no meaningful design or specification changes driving the 1996 issue — production was routine replenishment of circulating stock.