50 Cents - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait, Edmund

This coin commemorates Sir Edmund Hillary, whose face appeared on New Zealand's five-dollar note for years but found his way onto circulating coinage following his death in January 2008 — except this piece predates that event, issued in 2006 while Hillary was still alive. New Zealand was the first country to honor a living person on a circulating coin alongside its reigning monarch, a decision that generated quiet diplomatic discussion at the time.