5 Dollars German Kamerun, Essai

Palau's 1999 palladium program was one of the earliest sovereign palladium issues in the Pacific region, arriving just as the metal was experiencing a dramatic price spike driven by Russian export restrictions and surging automotive catalyst demand. The "Essai" designation here refers to a pattern or trial strike — the coin was never placed into regular circulation, making the production run extremely limited. The German Kamerun theme is the more puzzling element: Cameroon was a German protectorate from 1884 until 1916, when Anglo-French forces partitioned it during the First World War, ending German colonial administration entirely.