50 Dollars - Elizabeth II Capt. James Cook

The Cook Islands' claim to Captain Cook as a numismatic subject is geographically legitimate — Cook made three separate visits to the island group between 1773 and 1777, and the islands were named in his honor by charts produced after his death. This 1989 issue falls within a heavy wave of Pacific-nation commemorative silver programs that proliferated through the late 1980s, largely marketed to collector syndicates rather than circulated domestically.

Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, in February 1779 during a confrontation over a stolen cutter — not, as romanticized accounts long insisted, in a ritual context.