50 Dollars - Elizabeth II Landing on Guadalcanal

Tokelau's numismatic program has long relied on commemorative silver issues to generate revenue for the territory, which has no domestic economy capable of sustaining a conventional monetary system. This 1991 piece marks the fiftieth anniversary of the August 1942 Allied landings on Guadalcanal — the opening move of a brutal six-month campaign that effectively halted Japanese southward expansion in the Pacific and turned the strategic momentum of the entire war.

The Guadalcanal campaign cost the U.S. Navy more sailors than the Marine Corps lost on the island itself, largely due to the series of surface engagements fought in the surrounding waters the Americans grimly nicknamed Ironbottom Sound.