5 oz Taku Silver Coin

The 5 oz Fiji Taku Silver Coin

The 5 oz Fiji Taku is the large-format member of a discontinued bullion series featuring the hawksbill turtle, known as "taku" in Fijian. Issued as legal tender of Fiji from 2010 to 2013 and contract-minted by the New Zealand Mint on behalf of the Reserve Bank of Fiji, the Taku ran for only four years before political changes in Fiji ended the programme; from 2014 the design continued as the Niue Hawksbill Turtle under a different issuing authority. That finite run is the heart of the coin's appeal today: the Fiji-branded series can never be extended, and earlier years grow scarcer on the secondary market.

The coin contains five troy ounces (155.5 grams) of .999 fine silver. Five ounces is an in-between weight in silver, larger and more imposing than the standard 1 oz coin, but without the per-ounce efficiency of a 10 oz bar, and big silver coins generally carry collector premiums above bar prices. Buyers come to a 5 oz Taku for the format and the story, the critically endangered hawksbill rendered swimming along the ocean floor, on a discontinued Pacific series, rather than for cheap silver weight. Stackers optimising cost per ounce should look at 5oz silver bars instead; collectors of the Taku series will find the 5 oz the statement piece.

Fiji Taku Specifications Across the Series

The 5 oz silver coin carries the series' core specification: .999 fine silver, five troy ounces (155.5 g), issued as Fiji legal tender. The series' flagship 1 oz silver coin gives the fullest documented picture of the format:

Documented sizes across the series include the 1 oz and 1/2 oz silver, this 5 oz silver, and a 1 oz gold version at .9999 fineness with a $200 FJD face value, plus limited fractional gold issues. The turtle design occupies one face: a stylised hawksbill swimming along the ocean floor amid bubbles. The other face carried the Ian Rank-Broadley portrait of Queen Elizabeth II from 2010 to 2012, replaced in 2013 by the Coat of Arms of Fiji. Security rests on the milled edge, New Zealand Mint quality control, and the institutional verification that comes with official legal tender status. Mintages were not published with the granularity of the major sovereign mints, though the 2013 1 oz silver had a confirmed cap of 350,000.

Fiji Taku Tax Treatment by Country

The Taku is a .999 silver legal tender coin, so it follows the standard silver pattern in most jurisdictions, with a wrinkle for secondary-market buying in the UK.

• UK: new silver coins from non-UK territories attract 20% VAT, and the Taku has no UK CGT exemption since it is Fiji legal tender, not UK legal tender. As a discontinued coin traded second-hand, pre-owned examples are sold by some UK dealers under margin-scheme arrangements, where VAT is charged only on the dealer's margin rather than the full price, which can make secondary-market Takus meaningfully cheaper than full-VAT silver.
• US: no federal sales tax and most states exempt bullion. Long-term gains are taxed at the collectibles rate of up to 28%. The .999 purity meets the general IRA purity threshold for silver, though acceptance depends on the custodian.
• Canada: 0% GST/HST for silver coins refined to 99.9%+ purity.
• Australia and New Zealand: GST-free as investment-grade silver at 99.9%+ purity; .999 qualifies. The series circulated most heavily in the Australasian market given the New Zealand Mint connection.
• EU: full local VAT on new silver, with margin schemes available in some countries for second-hand coins.
• Singapore and Hong Kong: no GST or sales tax on qualifying bullion, and no capital gains tax.

The Taku: Four Years of Fiji, Then Niue

The Taku launched in 2010 as official Fiji coinage authorised by the Reserve Bank of Fiji and struck by the New Zealand Mint, which has a pattern of issuing bullion for Pacific Island nations, including Fiji, Niue, and Tokelau, leveraging their legal tender status while marketing to global collectors. The subject was chosen well: the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN, and the coin brought attention to Pacific marine conservation. "Taku" is the Fijian word for the hawksbill; despite what some sources claim, the name is not Maori, as Fijian and Maori belong to different language families.

The series became an accidental document of Fiji's politics. The 2010 through 2012 issues carried Queen Elizabeth II on the reverse, but the 2013 coin replaced her portrait with the Coat of Arms of Fiji, one of the earliest signals of the country's constitutional trajectory following the 2006 military coup. Fiji formally became a republic in 2013, removing the Queen as head of state, and the government ended the licensing arrangement with the New Zealand Mint. From 2014 the same basic turtle design reappeared as the Niue Hawksbill Turtle, denominated in NZD with the Queen's portrait restored, since Niue is a New Zealand-associated state recognising the British Crown. The Fiji originals, four dates only, with the 2013 coat-of-arms issue unique in the run, are what collectors now hunt.

Fiji Taku vs Niue Hawksbill and the Big Silver Coins

The most direct comparison is the series' own successor. The Niue Hawksbill Turtle (2014 onward) is the same basic design from the same New Zealand Mint, under a different legal tender authority and currency. Niue versions are more readily available; the Fiji originals are finite and carry a scarcity premium, especially the 2010 first-year issue. A buyer who simply likes the turtle should buy Niue; a buyer who wants the discontinued original pays for the Fiji name. Another sibling worth knowing is the Fiji Great Wave, a different-themed New Zealand Mint product for Fiji from the same issuing relationship.

Against the Southern Hemisphere mainstream, the Perth Mint's Kookaburra and Koala series are the closest competitors, with annual designs, Australian legal tender status, much greater liquidity, and wider dealer networks; at the 5 oz weight, the Perth Mint Lunar 5 oz is the established sovereign alternative. The Canadian Maple Leaf remains the global benchmark for silver purity at .9999, a notch above the Taku's .999, though the difference has no practical investment consequence. The Taku also competes with collector-oriented large coins like the Mexican 5 oz Libertad and the now-finished America the Beautiful series, both of which command premiums above standard bars for desirable issues. In every case the Taku trades liquidity for niche scarcity; sell-side, expect specialist and online dealers rather than instant buy-back at any coin shop.