1 Dollar - Elizabeth II Samurai

Cook Islands began issuing collector-targeted dollar coins with applied color and plating in the early 2000s, contracting production to the New Zealand Mint for a wave of themed series aimed squarely at the novelty collector market. This piece rode the commercial wave surrounding the 2003 Tom Cruise film, one of the few instances where a Pacific territory's coinage calendar was effectively timed to a Hollywood release schedule.