G'day mate. So I have been looking at these Niue silver coins, and some are rather spectacular. Yet, I never see a discussion here of these coins. Why is that? Do they have a bad reputation? I can see that their silver is 925 instead of 999, but apart from that?
Niue doesn't have its own currency so most of the coins are purely for commemorative purposes, pretty much a money grab. A few of these poor island nations rent out their name to Mints like the MacQuarie and New Zealand Mints and other than making stamps and coins they don't really have an industry. They have some nice coins out but not a massive following, they are pretty much along the lines of coins from Kiribati, Cook Islands, Pobjoy Mint and the Franklin Mint. They are OK, but not likely to have a massive increase in value or a large following and none of them will ever make their way to the various islands. They had some $10 for $10 coins a while back and there was some concern that you paid $10 Australian and got $10 Niue money, which are on the same exchange rate but you obviously can't bank it in Australia, as if you ever would. A few people felt they were being cheated and there was a bit of a backlash, particularly at the time as Niue claimed not to have any knowledge that the MacQuarrie Mint had produced these coins in their name. It has pretty much blown over now but was interesting at the time.
