1 Tala - Elizabeth II 2nd portrait

Tokelau — three atolls with a combined land area under 12 square kilometers — began issuing collector coinage in 1978 largely as a revenue mechanism, the islands having virtually no export economy beyond copra. The 1981 tala falls within that early run, issued while Tokelau remained a non-self-governing territory administered by New Zealand under a UN mandate that has never been formally resolved. The second portrait of Elizabeth II, by Arnold Machin, had been in circulation on Commonwealth coinage since 1968.