500 Pesos

Colombia's shift to bimetallic coinage in the early 1990s came directly out of the 1990 constitutional overhaul that restructured Banco de la República's mandate, formally separating monetary policy from government financing — a reform driven in part by decades of inflation that had steadily eroded the purchasing power of smaller denominations. The 500 peso coin effectively replaced banknote equivalents that had become impractical to produce and handle.

The series ran nearly twenty years with minimal modification, a longevity that produced significant die variation across mints and years.