10 Tala - Tanumafili II XXV Summer Olympics - Hammer Thrower

Issued to mark the 1992 Barcelona Games, this is one of dozens of Pacific island commemorative series produced throughout the late 1980s and 1990s — a period when small nations with minimal Olympic delegations nonetheless generated significant hard currency revenue through licensed coin programs. Samoa's output from this era was largely marketed to collectors in Europe and North America, with actual circulation negligible.

Tanumafili II, whose portrait authorized these issues, held the title of O le Ao o le Malo — head of state — from 1962 until his death in 2007, making his reign one of the longest of any head of state in the twentieth century.