50 Vatu Pedro Fernandez de Quiros

Pedro Fernández de Quirós reached the New Hebrides archipelago in 1606 during a Spanish expedition from Peru, convinced he had found the mythical southern continent — Terra Australis. He hadn't. The islands he named Austrialia del Espíritu Santo were dismissed by his own crew, and Quirós never returned. Nearly four centuries later, those same islands became Vanuatu upon independence in 1980, one of the few Pacific nations to emerge from joint Anglo-French colonial administration, a genuinely awkward arrangement known as the Condominium that locals called the "Pandemonium."

This 1992 issue belongs to the Reserve Bank's early commemorative program, coinciding with the quincentenary wave of Columbus-era exploration coinage flooding world mints that year.