Silver Ounce 2016 Monkey King - Victory, Coin from Niue - detailed information

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 commemorative, bullion and collector coins under the authority of Niue. These coins are dedicated to historical or general popular culture themes not related to Niue itself. Many of them are in standard bullion sizes - typically, one ounce of silver (abbreviated as 1 oz Ag, where "Ag" comes from the Latin word for silver, Argentum). Many of these have a Zodiac-inspired theme.

This coin is part of the three-coin Monkey King mini-series issued by the New Zealand Mint to mark the Chinese Lunar Year of the Monkey 2016.

The coins feature the Monkey King (Sun Wukong) from the 16 century Chinese novel "Journey to the West". Sun Wukong is a monkey born from a stone on Flower Fruit Mountain, who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. These abilities include immense strength, the power to travel vast distances in a single leap, mastery of the 72 Earthly Transformations (allowing him to change into various animals and objects), and magical skills such as weather manipulation, invisibility, and creating clones from his own hair.

The second coin in the series features the Golden Monkey winning Victrory.