1 Dollar - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait, Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf

New Zealand's licensing arrangement with Warner Bros. for Tolkien-related coin issues traces back to the original Lord of the Rings film trilogy, which was shot entirely in New Zealand between 1999 and 2003 and remains tightly bound to the country's national identity through ongoing tourism infrastructure. This 2021 release falls under the third wave of commemorative issues connected to that relationship, by which point the Reserve Bank had long since normalized pop-culture themed legal tender as a revenue mechanism rather than a monetary policy tool.