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 feature characters and themes from popular culture.
This specially shaped silver coin is part of a range of coins featuring the cult video game Pac-Man.
The popular arcade game originated in Japan and was first released on 22 May 1980. The plot of the game revolves around the eponymous protagonist PAC-MAN - a yellow, puck-shaped character whose task is to eat dots in a maze. While doing so, he is pursued by four colourful ghosts with big eyes, from which he must escape.
The protagonist, as displayed on the low-resolution screens of the time, was 13 pixels high and 12 pixels wide. Each "pixel" on the coin is .116 inch by .116 inch.
Ms.Pac-Man is an arcade video game originally presented to the public in 1981 by the American distributor of Pac-Man as a sequel to that series. The wildly popular sequel expanded upon the foundations of the original Pac-Man with new mazes, tougher challenge, and an overarching narrative exploring the relationship between Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Man.
Ms. Pac-Man was born in the United States, featuring a female Pac-Man with a ribbon on top. The game system is the same as Pac-Man, and comes with added features, such as an alternating maze design system with two warp tunnels. The classic arcade game went on to sell 125,000 cabinets by 1988. It was also ported to several home video game consoles and won multiple awards. |