Issued to mark the bicentennial of Cook's third Pacific voyage, which brought him through Samoan waters in the late 1770s — though Cook himself never landed on Samoa proper. The commemorative program Samoa ran through the late 1970s was partly a revenue exercise exploiting collector demand for Pacific-themed issues, a common strategy among newly independent island nations building foreign exchange through numismatic bureaus.
Tanumafili II, joint head of state at the time of issue, would eventually outlive his co-leader to become the world's last reigning monarch to have been born under colonial rule.
Issued to mark the bicentennial of Cook's third Pacific voyage, which brought him through Samoan waters in the late 1770s — though Cook himself never landed on Samoa proper. The commemorative program Samoa ran through the late 1970s was partly a revenue exercise exploiting collector demand for Pacific-themed issues, a common strategy among newly independent island nations building foreign exchange through numismatic bureaus.
Tanumafili II, joint head of state at the time of issue, would eventually outlive his co-leader to become the world's last reigning monarch to have been born under colonial rule.