Silver Two Ounces 2020 Chatham Island Crested Penguin, Coin from New Zealand - detailed information

New Zealand uses the New Zealand Dollar as its circulation currency for daily transactions. The country also issues a number of commemorative and collector coins, including in the large two ounces of silver format (abbreviated as 2 oz Ag, where "Ag" comes from the Latin word for silver, Argentum). Authorised by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the official issuer of these coins is NZ Post - which also issues the country's postal stamps. Manufacturing of the coins is commissioned to various foreign mints.

The coins are "Non-Circulating Legal Tender" (NCLT) and not bullion because they are issued at prices much higher than their intrinsic value and are targeted at collectors who appreciate them for their artistic or sentimental value, and not at bullion investors.

New Zealand has the tradition of issuing one large commemorative per year which is considered "the" annual coin, and the coin for 2020 features the extinct Chatham Island Crested Penguin.

NZ Post says about it:
Every year New Zealand Post releases a coin commemorating one of Aotearoa's extinct animals. This vivid coin recalls the recently discovered Chatham Island crested penguin, a unique species that existed on this remote archipelago until only a few hundred years ago.

In 2019, an international team of researchers extracted mitochondrial DNA from subfossil bones discovered in sand dunes on the Chatham Islands. This research confirmed that until a few centuries ago a unique crested penguin species, Eudyptes warhami, existed on the Chatham Islands. Undisturbed for millennia, the Chatham Islands were once teeming with wildlife. Although some species have been lost since human habitation, thankfully many endangered species have been revitalised in recent years due to conservation efforts.

This detailed silver premium bullion coin was designed by New Zealand artist Dave Burke. Two Chatham Island crested penguins are imagined here with a stormy backdrop familiar to inhabitants of the Chatham Islands. The birds are encircled by an arc of koru designs.