2 Pa'anga - Taufa'ahau Tupou IV Humpback Whale

Tonga's 1980 wildlife series emerged from a broader Pacific conservation push that coincided with the International Whaling Commission's increasingly fractious debates over commercial whaling quotas. Humpback populations in the South Pacific had been devastated by Soviet and Japanese pelagic fleets operating through the 1960s, and island nations with no whaling industry to protect were among the loudest voices for protection. Tonga was one of them.

KM#63 was struck in relatively modest quantities and saw genuine circulation, which makes problem-free examples harder to locate than the mintage figures alone would suggest.