New Zealand - 2021 - Gold Fifty Cent Proof Coin - Endeavour

This delicate and minuscule 11mm 0.9999 gold proof coin weighs in at just half a gram. The design of the New Zealand 50c coin is minted in fine detail, with the Ian Rank-Broadley portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse. The illustration on the reverse features the HMS Endeavour, the ship on which Captain James Cook became the first Briton to reach New Zealand, and Mount Taranaki in the background. Used in Captain Cook’s first of three voyages to New Zealand, the Endeavour would have passed by Mount Taranaki early in the year 1770 as it was sailed down to Ship Cove in the South Island after first anchoring in Turanganui (Poverty Bay) in the North Island.