Niue, a sovereign state in free association with New Zealand, uses two official legal tender currencies. The New Zealand Dollar is the circulation currency for daily transactions, while the government also authorises legal tender coins in the Niue Dollar currency for collector's purposes.
A number of mints issue a large variety of coins under the authority of Niue. Most of these are commemorative and collector issues dedicated to historical or general popular culture themes not related to Niue itself. Many of them are in standard bullion sizes, including one ounce of gold (abbreviated as 1 oz Au, where "Au" comes from the Latin word for gold, Aurum). Those issued at prices much higher than their bullion value are separately listed in the Non-Circulating Legal Tender (NCLT) gold ounce section of the site.
Unlike them, this coin is targeted at bullion investors and was initially released at a price close to the value of its precious metal content.
This premium bullion coin by the Czech Mint explores the history of the American Dollar, whose name derives from the Joachimsthaler (in Czech, Jáchymov Tolar), which originated in the Czech Kingdom in 1520. This high-quality currency spread throughout Europe and its success encouraged others to mint a number of imitations. From Hungary we know the distorted taller, from Poland the talar, from Greece the tàliro, from Italy the tallero, from Persia the dare, from Iceland the dalur and from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands the daler. It was Dutch currency that spread around the world thanks to the boom in international trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. Dutch coins were used to pay in the Middle East, Indonesia and the Dutch colony in the New World, which later became New York. From there it was only a short step to the proverbial dollar - the Dutch pronunciation of the word daler is strikingly similar to the English pronunciation of the word dollar.
Both sides of the 2024 edition were designed by Martin Dašek. |
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The obverse of the coin features the official Public Seal of Niue.
It has an inner circle of hiapo designs, representing the fonua (land), within which are stylised designs of a tree, representing life and tagata Niue (the people of Niue), surrounded by an outer circle in the form of a traditional Niuean garland of 14 seashells (representing the 14 villages of Niue), and crowned with St Edward's Crown (of the United Kingdom), representing the sovereign as head of state.
Around above between the two circles, the inscription PUBLIC SEAL OF NIUE. Below, a ribbon carries the motto ATUA NIUE TUKULAGI on two lines (meaning "God, Niue Eternally"), below which two crossed katoua (Niue fighting clubs).
The seal is in a small oval on the right. The rest of the surface features two American "Liberty Dollars".
Around above, the face value and the date of issue 50 DOLLARS 2024 on a patterned background.
The mint mark of the Czech Mint - a crowned monogram of the letters ČM (Česká mincovna) - is below the 5 of "50 DOLLARS". |
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