San Marino's bimetallic 500 lire program of the late 1980s and early 1990s ran parallel to Italy's own adoption of the format, introduced by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato in 1982. The microstate's issues were legal tender in Italy under longstanding monetary agreements, giving these coins genuine circulation reach far beyond San Marino's 61 square kilometers.
San Marino's bimetallic 500 lire program of the late 1980s and early 1990s ran parallel to Italy's own adoption of the format, introduced by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato in 1982. The microstate's issues were legal tender in Italy under longstanding monetary agreements, giving these coins genuine circulation reach far beyond San Marino's 61 square kilometers.