5 Dollars - Elizabeth II Vincent van Gogh

Part of a broader Cook Islands commemorative program exploiting the islands' liberal licensing arrangements to issue collector coins with no connection to local history or currency needs. Van Gogh died in July 1890 — two months after shooting himself in a wheat field near Auvers-sur-Oise — leaving an estate that included roughly 900 paintings sold for almost nothing during his lifetime. The irony of his image appearing on a precious-metal collectible retailing for multiples of face value would not have been lost on a man who relied almost entirely on his brother Theo's financial support.