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.
The last silver coin from the Czech Mint's four-part miniseries inspired by Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book features Akela's wolf pack.
Akela, the great grey Indian wolf, is the strong and wise leader of a pack of 40 wolves, which also includes an orphan boy named Mowgli. The human cub's journey to becoming a member of the wolf family has not been easy. The wolves initially considered throwing Mowgli to a tiger, but despite their doubts, Akela became his mentor. As a gentleman to whom honour is everything, he taught the human responsibility and the laws of family. Then, when the treacherous tiger Sher Khan staged an uprising of young wolves, Mowgli faithfully repaid his adoptive father and saved his life.
Akela left the pack, but remained the boy's loyal friend. He helped him to end the rampage of the "Tiger King" and saved a pack that had turned its back on him at the cost of his own life. |