50 Sene - Tanumafili II

Tanumafili II held the position of O le Ao o le Malo — head of state of Western Samoa — from independence in 1962 until his death in 2007, making him one of the longest-serving heads of state in the Pacific. The 1974 coinage series he appears on marked a decisive break from the earlier tala issues struck under the Bank of Western Samoa, coinciding with the establishment of the Central Bank. He later became a Bahá'í, the first head of state to formally adopt that faith — a fact entirely invisible in the numismatic record but inseparable from his later decades in office.