The Cook Islands dollar was the former currency of the

Cook Islands ) , image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , capital = Avarua , coordinates = , largest_city = Avarua , official_languages = , lan ...

, which now uses the

New Zealand dollar The New Zealand dollar ( mi, tāra o Aotearoa; sign: $, NZ$; code: NZD) is the official currency and legal tender of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, the Ross Dependency, Tokelau, and a British territory, the Pitcairn Islands. Within Ne ...

, although some physical cash issued for the Cook Islands dollar remains in use. The dollar was subdivided into 100 '' cents'', with some older 50-cent coins carrying the denomination as "50 ''tene''".

History

Until 1967, the

New Zealand pound The pound (symbol £, £NZ. for distinction) was the currency of New Zealand from 1840 until 1967, when it was replaced by the New Zealand dollar. Like the pound sterling, it was subdivided into 20 shillings (abbreviation s or /) each of 12 pen ...

was used in the Cook Islands, when it was replaced by the

. In 1972, local issues of coins of the New Zealand dollar began to be released for the Cook Islands. In 1987, the Cook Islands dollar was established and pegged at par to the New Zealand dollar, with each Cook Islands dollar backed by a New Zealand dollar held by the

Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or i ...

of the Cook Islands government and freely interchangeable; the New Zealand dollar remained

legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in ...

alongside the new currency. The Currency Reserves Amendment Act 1989 modified the required backing of Cook Islands dollars to 50% of the face value for circulating currency, and 2% of the face value for currency not intended for circulation ( proof, uncirculated, and souvenir

coin set A coin set, or mint set, is a collection of Uncirculated or Proof coins, released by a mint. Such sets are usually released annually and often called a year set. They include sets of all the circulating coins of that year, as well as sets of comme ...

s; uncut note sheets). By 1993, circulating notes were only backed by 5% of their face value in NZD, and coins were not backed at all. Meanwhile, the rate of currency issuance, and governmental budget deficits, had increased such that the national debt was nearly double annual

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...

. Eventually,

commercial bank A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit. It can also refer to a bank, or a division of a large bank, which deals with co ...

s refused to convert the currency to New Zealand dollars resulting in

capital flight Capital flight, in economics, occurs when assets or money rapidly flow out of a country, due to an event of economic consequence or as the result of a political event such as regime change or economic globalization. Such events could be an increa ...

and an

economic crisis An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...

. This prompted the government to revert to using the New Zealand dollar as the country's currency in April 1995. Cook Islands dollar banknotes other than the notes ceased to be legal tender, although they remained convertible to New Zealand dollars at the Cook Islands Treasury until 2005. Coins have been struck on different occasions mainly by the

Royal Australian Mint The Royal Australian Mint is the sole producer of all of Australia's circulating coins and is a Commonwealth Government entity operating within the portfolio of the Treasury. The Mint is situated in the Australian federal capital city of Canberr ...

, the

Franklin Mint The Franklin Mint is a private mint founded by Joseph Segel in 1964 in Wawa, Pennsylvania. The building is in Middletown Township. The brand name was previously owned by Sequential Brands Group headquartered in New York City, New York. It is ...

and National Collecter's Mint in the United States, and the

Perth Mint The Perth Mint is Australia's official bullion mint and wholly owned by the Government of Western Australia. Established on 20 June 1899, two years before Australia's Federation in 1901, the Perth Mint was the last of three Australian col ...

, with the paper currency being printed by De La Rue in England.

Coins

In 1972, bronze 1- and 2-cent, and

cupro-nickel Cupronickel or copper-nickel (CuNi) is an alloy of copper that contains nickel and strengthening elements, such as iron and manganese. The copper content typically varies from 60 to 90 percent. (Monel is a nickel-copper alloy that contains a minimu ...

5-, 10-, 20-, and 50-cent, and 1-dollar coins were introduced. All were the same size, weight, and composition as the corresponding New Zealand coins, however, the unique British crown-sized dollar coin circulated much more readily than its New Zealand equal. Each coin depicted plants, animals, and items unique to the Cook Islands. In 1983, production of the 1- and 2-cent coins was ceased and the two coins were later

demonetized Legal tender is a form of money that Standard of deferred payment, courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which wh ...

– almost 10 years before the equivalent occurred in New Zealand. The Cook Islands has a long reputation for frequent monetary oddities. It was one of the last countries to hold on to large crown-sized coins ($1 of the 1972-83 issue) while elsewhere, coins of such size are no longer minted in large enough quantities intended for circulation. In 1987, a smaller, lighter scallop-edged coin with a similar size and shape to the

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

piece was issued. This coin was produced to replace its bulky predecessor. With the release of its new piece in that year, the Cook Islands became the first modern country to issue a circulating triangular coin, along with a

dodecagon In geometry, a dodecagon or 12-gon is any twelve-sided polygon. Regular dodecagon A regular dodecagon is a figure with sides of the same length and internal angles of the same size. It has twelve lines of reflective symmetry and rotational sym ...

al (twelve-sided) piece in equal size and shape to the Australian 50-cent coin. These and were composed of cupro-nickel and the coin was in

aluminium bronze Aluminium bronze is a type of bronze in which aluminium is the main alloying metal added to copper, in contrast to standard bronze (copper and tin) or brass (copper and zinc). A variety of aluminium bronzes of differing compositions have found in ...

. 1988 brought the redesign of the 50-cent piece, the first coin in the country to bear a denomination name. Although widely recognized as "cents" this coin depicts "tene", the

Cook Islands Māori Cook Islands Māori is an Eastern Polynesian language that is the official language of the Cook Islands. Cook Islands Māori is closely related to New Zealand Māori, but is a distinct language in its own right. Cook Islands Māori is simply c ...

equivalent to the English word cent. In 1995, the Cook Islands dollar was withdrawn in favour of the New Zealand dollar only. Local coins remained in use and technically became denominated in New Zealand dollars, likewise for future coin issues even as they continued to be inscribed with the words "Cook Islands". A large, stainless steel 5-cent coin was issued in 2000 centred on the theme of the UN's

Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

and

food security Food security speaks to the availability of food in a country (or geography) and the ability of individuals within that country (geography) to access, afford, and source adequate foodstuffs. According to the United Nations' Committee on World ...

, depicting the image

Tangaroa Tangaroa (Takaroa in the South Island) is the great of the sea, lakes, rivers, and creatures that live within them, especially fish, in Māori mythology. As Tangaroa-whakamau-tai he exercises control over the tides. He is sometimes depicted a ...

, the Polynesian sea god also present on the dollar piece. 2003 saw the reintroduction of a 1-cent coin, this time composed of aluminium rather than bronze and slightly smaller and thicker than the 10-cent piece. These were issued with five different reverses, each commemorating a few of the nation's historical themes. With the reduction in size of New Zealand's 10-, 20-, and 50-cent coins in 2006, older cent coins began to be phased out in both countries. However, , , and pieces remained in use. Although a 2010 commemorative Cook Islands coin set in denominations 1-, 2-, 5-, 10-, 20-, and 50-cents and a bimetallic have been minted with a similar size to some of the newer New Zealand ones, these coins are for collectors and intended to raise money for the Cook Islands government, rather than for release into circulation. In 2015, as part of a coinage reform, new coins were minted by the

. The new coins carry similar designs to the older ones with the 10-, 20-, and 50-cents struck in nickel-plated steel, while the 1-, 2-, and 5-dollar coins are struck in brass-plated steel. The new 5-dollar coin features a traditional ''vaka'' (a type of canoe) instead of a conch. The cents are smaller than previous issues with closer size and weight to the current coins of New Zealand while the new dollars continue to have their distinctive shapes. On 30 April 2016, all previous coins lost legal tender status and were withdrawn from circulation. The obverse of all coins of the Cook Islands depict Queen Elizabeth II; she was Head of State of the

Realm of New Zealand The Realm of New Zealand consists of the entire area in which the monarch of New Zealand functions as head of state. The realm is not a federation; it is a collection of states and territories united under its monarch. New Zealand is an indep ...

. The reverse of standard issue coins are as depicts: The Cook Islands also issue a large number of commemorative non-circulating collectors' coins featuring an almost endless array of themes, as the government has a contract in which a coin design can be commissioned and minted with the name "Cook Islands" and dollar units for a fee, making coinage a resource for extra revenue. Due to exchange schemes involving large stocks of non-circulating commemorative coins, mintages are regulated and not recognized or accepted as legal tender within the Cook Islands.

Banknotes

On 20 July 1987, 3-, 10-, and 20-dollar notes were introduced by the government, followed by 50-dollar notes as part of a new series of notes in 1992. The notes all bear images of items, events, and panorama relevant to native

Polynesian culture Polynesian culture is the culture of the indigenous peoples of Polynesia who share common traits in language, customs and society. The development of Polynesian culture is typically divided into four different historical eras: *Exploration and se ...

. In June 1995, the government of the Cook Islands began exchanging all of the larger banknotes for New Zealand currency, but the 3-dollar note and all coins remain in use. In 2015, the Cook Islands Ministry of Finance and Economic Management sold its final stocks of Cook Islands banknotes by tender. On 4 August 2021, the Cook Islands Ministry of Finance and Economic Management issued a new 3-dollar banknote, being printed on

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

.Cook Islands 3 dollars polymer banknote
Banknote Museum (www.banknote.ws) Retrieved on 2021-12-27.

References

Sources

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External links