April 20, 2019April 20, 2019 by Willem

Saturday/ that’s Pukaki, on the coin

Wow! A shiny quarter, I thought, spotting a coin on the floor in the grocery store.
Oh! It’s not a quarter, I realized when I picked it up.
It was 20 cent coin, all the way across the globe from New Zealand.

This 20c New Zealand coin was first issued in 2006, and this is a Māori carving of Pukaki, an 18th-century chief of the Ngati Whakaue iwi (tribe). Those patterns are traditional koru kowhaiwhai patterns. (They remind me a little of Celtic patterns).

The Queen is on the back of the coin (New Zealand is one of the 53 Commonwealth nations). The coin is made of nickel-plated steel. P.S. And the tiny letters IRB stands for Ian Rank-Broadley. In 1998 he redesigned the picture of Queen Elizabeth and many coins since have featured his work, and thus his signature initials.

An unusual edge to these coins: Spanish flower milling. It has evenly spaced indents splitting it into seven sections.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply