10 Tālā - Tanumafili II Captain James Cook, Silver Proof issue

Issued the same year Samoa's head of state Malietoa Tanumafili II attended the historic papal visit of John Paul II to the Pacific — the first pope to visit the region — this coin instead commemorates Cook's 1722 Pacific voyages, part of a broader wave of Cook bicentennial issues that flooded the commemorative market in the late 1970s. Samoa was one of dozens of nations to contract with the Franklin Mint or similar operators for such releases, making the series more a product of the commemorative coin boom than of any particular Samoan historical connection to Cook.