5 Dollars - Elizabeth II Monkey King vs. Erlang

Niue has functioned since the 1990s as a licensing vehicle for the New Zealand Mint, issuing collector coins with no meaningful connection to the island's roughly 1,500 residents. This piece belongs to a series drawing on Journey to the West, the 16th-century Chinese novel by Wu Cheng'en — specifically the confrontation between Sun Wukong and Erlang Shen, a conflict spanning several chapters in which both combatants cycle through successive animal transformations. The underlying copper core beneath the silver cladding accounts for the bulk of the 419.85 g mass, a construction method that allows large-format pieces to remain commercially viable without the cost of solid silver at this diameter.