½ Poe rava Faaite

The *poe rava* — the black pearl — anchors French Polynesia's modern coinage identity in ways the archipelago's earlier French colonial issues never attempted. These aluminum pieces circulate across islands separated by hundreds of kilometers of open Pacific, serving an economy where pearl farming around Rangiroa and the Tuamotu atolls contributes hundreds of millions of euros annually to GDP.

Aluminum coinage of this weight and size tends to survive poorly in high-humidity tropical environments, making well-preserved examples from general circulation genuinely uncommon despite relatively recent mintage.