Product Description
SCWPM.#102 - TBB.B501a - Date: 2000
Grade: Unc. - Signature: 2
Description: - Green, blue, brown, and orange. - Front: Kaka bird perched on a branch; domodomo (canoe - masthead) as registration device; COMMEMORATING THE YEAR 2000 WHERE THE MILLENNIUM BEGINS and y2k overprints; Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau; silver metallic ornament; coat of arms. - Back: Flower; map of Fiji islands and 180° meridian with sun rising; man with beard wearing turban, young boy and girl, infant, man blowing into conch shell, and woman wearing straw hat; sea turtle; sailing boat with palm trees in background; domodomo; flowers.
Windowed security thread. - Watermark: Fijian head. - Printer: DE LA RUE - Size: 156 x 67 mm.
General information:
This note was issued “to commemorate Fiji as the first country in the world to see the new millennium and the last to see the sunset of the old millennium.” One million 2 dollar notes were printed, with 436,000 available singly in a folder, 100,000 uncut sheets of two notes, 15,000 uncut sheets of 20 notes, and 2000 uncut sheets of 32 notes. Two thousand 2000 dollar notes were also produced.
The Reserve Bank of Fiji sold these notes at a premium to Money World Asia, but this numismatic distributor based in Singapore had little success marketing these notes to others. It sold fewer than 50,000 of the 2 dollar notes and only 100 of the 2000 dollar notes. On 5 October 2000, Money World Asia reached an agreement with the Reserve Bank of Fiji for the return of 1,900 unsold 2,000-dollar notes and approximately all but 250,000 unsold 2 dollar notes.
Although not initially issued as legal tender, the bank allowed the 2 dollar notes into circulation in 2003. The fate of the returned 2000 dollar notes remains unknown.
(Source: The Banknotebook)
