Tokelau, known previously as the Tokelau Islands, is a dependent territory of New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean. It uses the New Zealand Dollar as circulation currency, but has been issuing a variety if non-circulating coins since 1978. These are denominated in "Tala" (the local word for Dollar) and cents.
The gold half gram is a mini-coin denominated as Five Dollars.
This small gold commemorative coin is dedicated to polar explorer Roald Amundsen (1872 - 1928), a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, and marks 100 years since he reached the South Pole.
Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen began his career as a polar explorer as first mate on Adrien de Gerlache's Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1899. From 1903 to 1906, he led the first expedition to successfully traverse the Northwest Passage on the sloop Gjøa. In 1909, Amundsen began planning for a South Pole expedition. He left Norway in June 1910 on the ship Fram and reached Antarctica in January 1911. His party established a camp at the Bay of Whales and a series of supply depots on the Barrier (now known as the Ross Ice Shelf) before setting out for the pole in October. The party of five, led by Amundsen, became the first to successfully reach the South Pole on 14 December 1911.
Following a failed attempt in 1918 to reach the North Pole by traversing the Northeast Passage on the ship Maud, Amundsen began planning for an aerial expedition instead. On 12 May 1926, Amundsen and 15 other men in the airship Norge became the first explorers verified to have reached the North Pole. Amundsen disappeared in June 1928 while flying on a rescue mission for the airship Italia in the Arctic. |