50 Dollars - Elizabeth II Ferdinand Magellan

Magellan never completed his circumnavigation — he was killed in the Philippines in April 1521 during a battle at Mactan, leaving Juan Sebastián Elcano to bring the Victoria home. Cook Islands issued this series during the final years of the Pacific Forum's push for expanded commemorative programs among member states, part of a broader wave of silver issues that flooded the collector market in the late 1980s from small Pacific jurisdictions with minimal circulation economies.

The KM#49 attribution places it among a dense cluster of Cook Islands commemoratives from this period, most struck by the Pobjoy Mint or the Royal Australian Mint on contract.