The elegant little Casa Museo Banco Nacional (Calle 34 Este and Avenida Cuba, tel. 225-0640, 8 a.m.–12:30 p.m. and 1:30–4:30 p.m. Mon.–Fri., free admission), the former residence of a doctor, dates from 1925 and is now owned by the Banco Nacional de Panamá. It has rotating exhibits of arts and crafts for sale, though those I’ve seen have been quite poor.
It does have a tiny but interesting collection of Panamanian commemorative coins, including a silver 20 balboa piece about the size of a fist, a small gold 100 balboa piece, and a tiny 2.5 centavo piece. Other coins date from 1904, some of the earliest days of the republic.
It’s worth visiting just to see how the well-heeled lived in early-20th-century Panama City [1]. The house is lovely, with marble staircases, ornate wrought-iron fixtures, and several types of tile floors.
Links:
[1] http://www.moon.com/destinations/panama/panama-city