1 Pa'anga - Taufa'ahau Tupou IV Millennium

Issued to mark the millennium by a monarch who had himself become something of a curiosity — Taufa'ahau Tupou IV held the Guinness record as the world's heaviest head of state during the 1970s before undertaking a dramatic public weight-loss campaign in the 1980s. Tonga's commemorative coinage program in this period was prolific to a fault, producing dozens of issues annually through foreign minting arrangements primarily aimed at the collector market rather than domestic circulation.

The National Reserve Bank contracted much of this output through the Franklin Mint and similar operators. Most pieces never entered Tongan hands at all.