11 Aug 2011

Star Wars coins will be legal tender in Niue

4:23 pm on 11 August 2011

New Zealand Mint will release coins depicting Star Wars characters next week that can only be used as legal tender in Niue.

Lucas Films and New Zealand Mint have signed an agreement to produce seven-thousand-five-hundred copies of each coin to be sold in two sets of four coins.

The one-ounce silver coins include images of Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine and the Death Star.

Each set retails at 399-US-dollars.

The Vice President of the US Operations for New Zealand Mint, Chris Kirkness, says to make a coin legal tender it has to have a monetary value, or an effigy, and this is how they came to work with Niue.

"We sell a lot of product into the global market and Niue has become recognised as a good effigy to work with. It has the Queen's head on the back, which for obvious reasons we wanted to use an effigy that was global. And they're good to work with."

Mr Kirkness says Niue will earn form the deal though the New Zealand Mint won't disclose the details.