1 Dollar - Elizabeth II Beijing Handover

Niue has been a vehicle for commemorative silver issues since the 1990s, its status as a New Zealand realm territory giving it the legal latitude to produce coins for the international collector market while carrying Elizabeth II's effigy. The Beijing handover — Hong Kong's transfer from British to Chinese administration on July 1, 1997 — generated a wave of commemorative coinage across multiple issuing authorities, most of it aimed squarely at the Hong Kong and overseas Chinese collector market. This 2021 piece arrives nearly 25 years after the event itself.

The long lag between 1997 and issue date is almost certainly tied to anniversary marketing cycles around the handover's 25th year, which fell in 2022.