1 Dollar - Elizabeth II Olympics

Cook Islands issued a wave of commemorative dollars through the 1990s under licensing arrangements that had little to do with domestic monetary policy — these were produced almost entirely for the collector export market, with Franklin Mint and similar operators handling much of the distribution. The Atlanta Games of 1996 generated an unusually crowded field of authorized commemorative programs from small island nations, Cook Islands among them.

.500 fineness was the house standard for this tier of issue, keeping silver content low enough to protect margins on high-volume collector pieces.