5 Cents Bond Coin

Zimbabwe's bond coins were introduced in December 2014 as a stopgap after the country abandoned its own dollar in 2009 following the hyperinflation collapse. The Reserve Bank pegged them at par with the US cent, a fiction that held officially far longer than the economics justified. By the late 2010s, bond coins were trading at steep discounts on the parallel market despite the government's insistence on equivalence.

The brass-plated steel composition was a deliberate cost-containment measure — minting in base metal kept production costs well below face value, which was the entire point for a country with no functioning mint of its own. The coins were struck abroad under contract.