5 Dollars - Elizabeth II The Great Tea Race

The Great Tea Race of 1866 was a genuine commercial spectacle — a fleet of clippers departing Fuzhou within hours of each other, racing 16,000 miles to London to claim the premium paid for the season's first tea. The Taeping and Ariel arrived on the same tide after 99 days at sea, docking within 28 minutes of each other. The race effectively marked the end of an era for the clipper trade; the Suez Canal opened three years later, and steam-powered vessels made the entire exercise obsolete almost immediately.

Cook Islands has issued commemorative silver in this series under its currency authority since the 1990s, with reverse designs typically contracted to outside minting houses.