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 based on the troy ounce, including a very large ten ounces of gold format (abbreviated as 10 oz Au, where "Au" comes from the Latin word for gold, Aurum). These gold coins are targeted at bullion investors and are released at prices close to the intrinsic value of their precious metal content.
This 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. The Czech tolar thus became, for example, the Dutch Daler, which was used, among other things, in the American colonies. The dollar was then created by further distortion of the Czech word.
The reverse of the coin was designed by Ladislav Vraný, and the obverse 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 three American "Liberty Dollars" dated 1794.
Around above, the face value and the date of issue 500 DOLLARS 2022 on a dot-patterned background.
The mint mark of the Czech Mint - a crowned monogram of the letters ČM (Česká mincovna) - is below the 5 of "500 DOLLARS". |
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