Silver Ounce x4 Quadrant, Coin Type from Tuvalu - detailed information

The Tuvaluan Dollar is the currency of Tuvalu - a small nation in the Pacific Ocean. Tuvalu has never had banknotes of its own, and has been issuing coins since 1976; these circulate together with coins of the Australian Dollar, which is also legal tender in the country, and to which the Tuvaluan Dollar is pegged.

The Australian Perth Mint issues a large variety of non-circulating legal tender coins under the authority of Tuvalu. Some of these are in the silver ounce format, and some are in the "quadrant" format which the mint pioneered.

This is actually a set of four separate one-ounce coloured silver coins, each with a fan shape, which come together into a round shape with a square hole in the middle in the manner of old "ban liang" Chinese coins - these were first cast during the Qin Dynasty around 200BCE. Given that the quadrant coins are distributed together and are not supposed to be separated, they are described together on this site.