50 Tālā

The P#29 was issued as part of Samoa's first high-denomination series following the country's 1990 monetary reforms, when the Central Bank sought to introduce improved security features to combat counterfeiting that had been a persistent concern across Pacific island currencies. Thomas De La Rue's involvement was typical of the region — British American Tobacco's old printing arm had become the default security printer for most Commonwealth Pacific territories by this point.

The security thread on this series is an early example of De La Rue's embedded windowed thread technology, which they were rolling out across client currencies during this period rather than the simpler fully-encased strips used on earlier Samoan issues.