$5 — Five Dollars
The artwork
Front: Sir Edmund Hillary in three-quarter view, jacket collar up, rendered in warm red-brown intaglio. Behind him at left, the snow face of Aoraki/Mount Cook set in a pale blue panel, and lower down a small Ferguson tractor of the sort he drove to the South Pole. "RESERVE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND" runs across the top; below, "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR FIVE DOLLARS". Serial AL 836180 reads twice, horizontally and vertically.
Back: A hoiho — the yellow-eyed penguin, named in te reo beneath the vignette — stands on tussock in a sub-Antarctic island setting, its yellow eye-band picked out against slate-blue plumage. To the right, the yellow flower-spikes of Ross lily rise among strap leaves; at lower left, the ribbed leaves and pale blooms of a Campbell Island daisy. Large red 5s at either corner, with the printer's imprint along the foot.
In circulation
The paper Series 6 five-dollar note, introduced in 1992 with Hillary replacing the Queen on the lowest denomination. It circulated through the 1990s until polymer replaced it: the $5 was the first New Zealand note issued on plastic, from May 1999, keeping the same Hillary and hoiho design.
Details
- IssuerReserve Bank of New Zealand
- CurrencyDollar ($)
- DenominationFive Dollars
- Collectedon the New Zealand journey, 1993
- SeriesSeries 6, paper issue (from 1992)
- SignatureDonald T. Brash, Governor
- PrinterThomas De La Rue and Company Limited