5 Dollars - Elizabeth II Second year of Pope Benedictus XVI

Pope Benedict XVI was elected in April 2005 following the death of John Paul II, making 2006 his first full calendar year in office. Cook Islands issued a number of papal commemoratives during this period, part of a broader wave of Pacific island collector coinage that flooded the market in the mid-2000s — struck by European mints on contract and sold almost exclusively through the numismatic trade, never approaching the islands themselves.