Silver Ounce 2008 HMAV Bounty, Coin from Pitcairn Islands - detailed information

The Pitcairn Islands is a non-sovereign British overseas territory in the Pacific Ocean. Having a population of fewer than fifty people, the territory has no need for local coinage and uses the New Zealand dollar as a medium of exchange. Pitcairn Islands began issuing its first commemorative coins in 1988. Though the Pitcairn Islands dollar is not a true currency in the strict sense of the word and is not used as a circulation coinage, it can be lawfully exchanged as tender and is considered a variety of the New Zealand dollar (although it is not legal tender in New Zealand). The Pitcairn Islands dollar exists only because of the coin collecting market, which provides a major staple for the tiny island nation.

The coins are struck by various foreign mints and use internationally popular formats, such as the one troy ounce (1oz) of silver. Some of them are released at prices much higher than their intrinsic value - such as this one - so are classified as Non-Circulating Legal Tender (NCLT) (for those sold at a low margin, see the bullion silver ounce section instead).

This coin features the HMAV Bounty (also known as HMS Bounty), a ship famous for one of the best known mutinies in history. On 28 April 1789, led by Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, the crew seized control of the ship from Captain William Bligh. Bligh and 18 of his loyalists navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles to reach safety while the mutineers settled on Tahiti or on Pitcarn Island. In 1790, Captain Bligh sailing on the HMS Pandora apprehended some of the mutineers.

Fletcher Christian, eight other crewmen, six Tahitian men, and 11 women, one with a baby, set sail in Bounty hoping to elude the Royal Navy. According to a journal kept by one of Christian's followers, the Tahitians were actually kidnapped when Christian set sail without warning them, the purpose of this being to acquire the women. The mutineers passed through the Fiji and Cook Islands, but feared that they would be found there. Continuing their quest for a safe haven, on 15 January 1790 they rediscovered Pitcairn Island, which had been misplaced on the Royal Navy's charts. After the decision was made to settle on Pitcairn, livestock and other provisions were removed from Bounty. To prevent the ship's detection, and anyone's possible escape, the ship was burned on 23 January 1790 in what is now called Bounty Bay.

Currently, approximately 70% of the island's tiny population can trace its ancestry to the mutineers and the Tahitian women they abducted and subsequently married.