5 Cents - Elizabeth II 3rd portrait, magnetic

The magnetic nickel-plated steel version of this issue reflects a cost-driven compositional shift common across British dependencies in the early 1990s, as rising nickel prices made solid nickel coinage increasingly uneconomical. The Cayman Islands, operating with a currency pegged to the US dollar at a fixed rate of CI$1 to US$1.20 — a rate established in 1974 and never adjusted — had particular incentive to keep production costs low given the small size of the circulating currency pool.