4 Dollars - Elizabeth II Mermaid

Cook Islands has issued gold in fractional sizes for decades, but this piece belongs to a wave of sub-gram and just-over-gram issues that flooded the collector market in the 2010s and early 2020s — produced almost entirely for sale to hobbyists rather than any meaningful circulation. The $4 denomination is purely nominal, bearing no relationship to the coin's gold value or to any transactional currency used on the islands.

Struck by a contracted European mint on behalf of Cook Islands, whose government licenses its monetary authority for exactly this purpose.