5 Tālā

Samoa's switch from the earlier tālā series in the early 2000s came with a modest but deliberate modernization of the note program, with De La Rue retained as printer — a relationship stretching back through the islands' earlier monetary arrangements under the Bank of Western Samoa. The watermark remains the primary security provision here, which by 2002 was already well behind regional standards; the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's contemporaneous issues carried far more sophisticated protection.

Pick 33 is the last of the purely cotton-paper issues before polymer entered Samoan circulation.