Abel Tasman's 1642 voyage under the Dutch East India Company was the first European expedition to reach the islands now called Fiji, though he never landed — his crew observed the archipelago from a distance while charting a course that would also make him the first European to sight New Zealand and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) on the same journey. Fiji issued a wave of silver commemoratives through the early 1990s targeting the collector market rather than circulation, and this piece falls squarely in that program.
Abel Tasman's 1642 voyage under the Dutch East India Company was the first European expedition to reach the islands now called Fiji, though he never landed — his crew observed the archipelago from a distance while charting a course that would also make him the first European to sight New Zealand and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) on the same journey. Fiji issued a wave of silver commemoratives through the early 1990s targeting the collector market rather than circulation, and this piece falls squarely in that program.