Niue has operated as a prolific bullion and commemorative issuing authority since the 1980s, leveraging its currency arrangement with New Zealand to place Elizabeth II on coins that have no practical circulation purpose whatsoever. This piece commemorates the Latvian lats, the interwar currency introduced in 1922 that replaced the Latvian rublis at a rate of 50 rubļi to one lats — a stabilization exercise carried out under genuinely difficult postwar economic conditions. Latvia abandoned the lats twice: first under Soviet occupation in 1940, then again after a brief post-independence revival, when it was subsumed into the euro in 2014.
Niue has operated as a prolific bullion and commemorative issuing authority since the 1980s, leveraging its currency arrangement with New Zealand to place Elizabeth II on coins that have no practical circulation purpose whatsoever. This piece commemorates the Latvian lats, the interwar currency introduced in 1922 that replaced the Latvian rublis at a rate of 50 rubļi to one lats — a stabilization exercise carried out under genuinely difficult postwar economic conditions. Latvia abandoned the lats twice: first under Soviet occupation in 1940, then again after a brief post-independence revival, when it was subsumed into the euro in 2014.