Gold Quarter Ounce 2008 Pultusk Meteorite, Coin from Cook Islands - detailed information

The Cook Islands, a sovereign state in free association with New Zealand, uses two official legal tender currencies. The New Zealand Dollar circulates in parallel with the local Cook Islands Dollar; at the same time, the government also authorises many legal tender coins in the Cook Islands Dollar currency for collector's purposes or for investment.

Many of these are in standard bullion sizes, including in the small gold quarter ounce format (abbreviated as 1/4oz) - such as this coin.

This coin featuring the Pultusk Meteorite is part of the Meteorite Impacts collection which is issued in a number of different countries; all coins in it have an embedded original piece of the specific meteorite.

Pultusk is an H5 ordinary chondrite meteorite which fell on 30 January 1868 in Poland. The event has been known as the stony meteorite shower with the largest number of pieces yet recorded in history. Made up of rocky debris, it consists of pyroxene or olivine chondrules deployed in mass plagioclase, there being also kamacite.