Cook Islands has issued an unusually large number of commemorative and thematic coinage programs relative to its tiny population — the islands have fewer than 20,000 residents — making the New Zealand dollar the currency of everyday life while Cook Islands coinage functions almost entirely as a collector vehicle. This Capricorn piece is part of a twelve-coin zodiac series issued in 2003, a format the Cook Islands mint programs office returned to repeatedly throughout the early 2000s as demand from thematic collectors remained strong.
Cook Islands has issued an unusually large number of commemorative and thematic coinage programs relative to its tiny population — the islands have fewer than 20,000 residents — making the New Zealand dollar the currency of everyday life while Cook Islands coinage functions almost entirely as a collector vehicle. This Capricorn piece is part of a twelve-coin zodiac series issued in 2003, a format the Cook Islands mint programs office returned to repeatedly throughout the early 2000s as demand from thematic collectors remained strong.
KM# 1079 sees extremely limited circulation use.