5 Dollars Lourdes

Palau began issuing religious-themed commemoratives in the early 2000s, targeting the Catholic collector market — a deliberate revenue strategy for a microstate with no significant domestic numismatic tradition. The Lourdes issue corresponds loosely with the 150th anniversary commemorations of the Marian apparitions reported by Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, though Palau's interest was frankly commercial rather than ecclesiastical.

These pieces were distributed almost entirely through international coin dealers and never circulated in Palau itself.