Pacific island nations such as Palau, Tonga, and Tuvalu have been known to create unique commemorative silver coins with different shapes, embedded objects (including pearls), and colorized surfaces. Located east of Vanuatu in the South Pacific Ocean, FIJI is another such country. Pictured above, the pentagon-shaped 1999 5 Dollar ($5) coin celebrates the year 2000's arrival. This sterling silver (92.5%) masterpiece piques my interest not only because of its polygonal shape. As a geography lover, I appreciate seeing map designs embedded on coins and banknotes. However...
Is There a Map Design Error?
This coin depicts Taveuni island — as it mentions below the largest island shape — as well as the islands of Laucala, Matagi, and Qamea (second-largest). The north-south 180° meridian line is drawn on Taveuni island. I find it intriguing that the small island between Taveuni and Qamea cannot be found on Google Maps or Bing Maps; did ocean waters submerge it, or did the coin designer simply created an imaginative island? Wikipedia (the Qamea page) asserts that Qamea is one of only "three islets lying to the east" of Taveuni's Thurston Point. So yep, maybe that is an extra island!
The original, unedited coin images came from the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation's World Coin Price Guide. According to this informative website, this coin's mintage is 10,000 and current value (Proof condition) is $37.50.
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