10 Dollars - Elizabeth II Independence

Nauru gained independence from Australian administration in 1968, but the island had no domestic coinage until this 1993 issue — a 25-year gap that reflects how thoroughly the phosphate economy operated through Australian currency. The Bank of Nauru itself was less a conventional central bank than an instrument for managing phosphate revenues, which at their peak in the 1970s made Nauru briefly one of the highest per-capita income nations on earth.

By 1993, those reserves were collapsing. The timing of this inaugural coinage, aimed squarely at the collector market, coincided with the beginning of Nauru's long fiscal crisis.