10 Dollars - Elizabeth II Navajo Native Silver Art

Cook Islands has issued commemorative silver under its own authority since 1972, leveraging a currency arrangement with New Zealand that allows the territory to produce legal tender coins largely for the collector market. By 2011, the program had expanded aggressively into ethnographic and indigenous art themes sourced well outside the Pacific — the Navajo Nation, a sovereign entity in the American Southwest, had no formal role in authorizing or sanctioning this issue.

That disconnect is worth noting for provenance-conscious collectors.