Catalog
5 Dollars
| Issuer | Reserve Bank of New Zealand |
|---|---|
| Year | 1999-2015 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Intaglio portrait of Sir Edmund Hillary in three-quarter view occupies the centre-right, with his name lettered below; a vignette of Aoraki/Mount Cook set against a multicolour guilloche underprint appears at centre-left, accompanied by an outline map of New Zealand. The dominant colour is orange, with green and yellow geometric patterning to the right, a silver fern leaf at lower left, and a clear oval window with optically variable ink element at right. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse presents a panoramic coastal scene of Campbell Island, set within a multicolour underprint. A Hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin) is depicted alongside botanical illustrations of the Pleurophyllum speciosum (Campbell Island daisy) and Bulbinella rossii (Ross lily), rendered in the characteristic tones of the polymer note series. |
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| Comments |
New Zealand switched from paper to polymer for its entire circulating series in 1999, contracting Note Printing Australia — a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia — to produce notes for a direct economic competitor. The arrangement was entirely practical: NPA had pioneered Guardian polymer substrate with the Reserve Bank of Australia and offered the technology commercially before any other printer could match it.
Three governors signed across the sixteen-year run of P#185, with Wheeler's signature appearing only briefly before the redesigned Brighter Money series displaced the issue in 2015.