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 - typically, one ounce of silver (abbreviated as 1 oz Ag, where "Ag" comes from the Latin word for silver, Argentum). Those issued at prices much higher than their bullion value are separately listed in the Non-Circulating Legal Tender (NCLT) silver 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.
The Lion vs Hyenas coin is the first issue in the Apex Predators Collection, and features a powerful lion in conflict with three hyenas.
Hyenas live in packs, the so-called clans. The individual clan members help each other and often attack their prey together. It often happens that lions want to dispute the hyenas their prey - although the hyenas are basically hardly afraid of the big cats and fight back, they have no chance against a full-grown lion. |