World coins chat: Australia

Australia is a country that spans the continent of the same name and a couple of islands that are located between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It has a population of 23 million, and its economy is the 12th largest in the world.


Flag of Australia featuring the British Union Jack in the top left and the stars forming the constellation of Southern Cross which is only visible on that hemisphere. There are calls to replace this flag with a more modern one but so far this is still the official flag of Australia.

History
Australia has been inhabited for 50,000 years. The first European to sight it was Dutchman Willem Janszoon in 1606. His compatriot Abel Tasman mapped most of Australia and named it New Holland, but the Dutch never attempted to settle it. James Cook explored south east Australia in the 1770's, which resulted in the establishment of the colony of New South Wales in 1788.

The British, who had just lost its American colonies, used Australia mainly as a penal colony for local convicts. In the 19th century more colonies were established and in 1901 these were united as the Commonwealth of Australia. Fiji and New Zealand opted out of this federation and developed as separate nations.

During WW2 the Japanese Empire threatened to invade Australia but only the northern part of New Guinea was conquered, with Australian troops succesfully defending Port Moresby and subsequently defeating the Japanese in 1943.

After WW2 Australia developed into an advanced economy mostly based on mining of base metals, making it also dependent on global economic conditions. Its economy especially boomed during the early 2000's with commodity prices breaking record after record. With the recent collapse in Chinese demand for Australia's products Australia is facing new challenges.

Currency
Australia used British Pounds until 1910, although local privately issued banknotes were circulating in the 19th century alongside trade tokens to supplement the shortage in small denominations. From the 1850's half and whole gold sovereigns were minted in Sydney, with Melbourne and Perth commencing minting in the 1870's and 1890's respectively.

In 1910 the Australian Pound was introduced at par with the British one. After WW1 the gold standard was abandoned and by 1931 a new peg was established with the Australian Pound worth 20% less than the British Pound (1A£ = 16s British). After WW2 Australia followed the British devaluations of Sterling and Bretton Woods pegged the Australian Pound to $2.24.

In 1966 the Australian Pound was decimalised to the Dollar at 10 Shillings. The British devaluation of 1967 was not followed, hence the Australian Dollar was kept at $1.12. With the US Dollar devaluating in the early 1970's the Australian Dollar reached a record of $1.40, but was soon devalued to reach $0.90 in 1983. Since that year the currency has been floating, mostly following prices of Australia's major export products. It currently trades around US$ 0.75.

Besides Australia the Australian Dollar is also used on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Nauru, Kiribati and Tuvalu. The last two of these countries issue their own circulation coins next to using Australian coins and banknotes.

Coins
Before 1910, trade tokens issued by merchants circulated next to British currency. Gold sovereigns were minted in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. The first official Australian circulation coinage was issued in 1910. The only denominations that circulated where the Half Penny up to the Florin, no Farthings nor Half Crowns. A commemorative silver Crown was issued in 1937.

After WW2 silver content was reduced to 0.500. The last silver coin for circulation was the 1966 50 Cents, the only silver coin of the decimalised Dollar. That year a Shilling became 10 Cents and a Pound 2 Dollars.

A last oddity was the introduction of the 2 Dollar coin in 1988, which is smaller in size than the 1 Dollar coin introduced in 1984. Numerous circulating and non-circulating commemoratives have been issued since the 1970's. It is hard for collectors to keep pace with the issuance.

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/australie-1.html

While I have been reading through these world coin chats, I did not realise till now that one had been done for Australian and other countries I referee for. Over the next few weeks during my free time I will try and read over all the ones that I referee for and help contribute to them and correct any mistakes.

Below is a list of things I believe should be fixed and corrected:

"In 1939 Australia was granted self-rule by the UK."
I am a bit confued with what this means. As an Australian this is something I have not head of, so I went and did a quick Google search and could not find anything on this point. I believe this point is incorrect as Australia received full independence and self-rule from the UK on the 1st of January 1901 as part of Federation. Self-rule from the British was the main reason why Australia federated in 1901. Also Australia had a degree of self-rule before Federation in 1901 as after a certain date (I cannot remember at this time) the colonies in Australia were self governing with a large degree of self rule from the British.

"Australia used British Pounds until 1910"
I think that it would be better to say somthing like, "Australia used British Pound sterling from 1788 until 1910". Also the Australian catalog does say that the Pound sterling was used up till "1929". This is because the confusion from who actually issued Australian sovereigns. I would suggest leaving the 1929 point out until I receive the right information on some specific details on the issue of the sovereigns.

"bank tokens to supplement the shortage in small denominations."
These were not bank tokens and I do not belive any bank issued any tokens. These tokens were actually tokes issued by merchants called "Trade Tokens".

"From the 1850's half and whole gold sovereigns were minted in Sydney and Melbourne"
Yes gold sovereigns and half sovereigns were first struck in Sydney in the 1850's, they were not struck at Melbourne till the 1870's. However the main point I want to make is that the Perth mint also struck these coins begging 1899.

"In 1910 it was decided that Australia had its own Pound at par with the British one."
I belive it would be better to reword this as, "In 1910 the Australian pound was introduced at par with the British pound sterling".

"privately issued bank tokens circulated"
Again these were Trade Tokens.

"Gold sovereigns were minted in Sydney and Melbourne"
Perth should also be mentioned.

"but were mainly shipped to India"
This statment is a little incorrect. This issue only affected a small number of production years so the majority of Australian sovereigns were not sent off to India.

In this paragraph for coins you should also make referance to the Proclamation Coinage, Holey Dollar & Dump and the Adelaide Pound. All these coins can be found in the Colonial Australia catalog.

Also with the recent split of the Australian catalog, you may want to reference the two catalogs.

These are all the mistakes and error I have picked up. If I find anymore I will make another post. Hope all my points can me fixed and implemented. Great job Jokinen for the work you put into this post and the other world coin chats!

I agree with everything Australian Coin Info has said. Here is another small correction:-

Where the original post says .... "During WW2 the Japanese Empire threatened to invade Australia but only New Guinea was conquered."

New Guinea was not conquered by the Japanese ... They only invaded the northern part of it. They never made it to Port Moresby the capital. They were stopped and pushed back by Australian Troops on the ground and eventually all Japanese forces on new Guinea were destroyed.

Here is a commemorative coin that was released to mark the 70th anniversary of the battle against the Japanese in New Guinea by Australian Forces in particular on the Kokoda Track.

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces58454.html

Cheers Mike

Happy that people actually read them and thank you for the suggestions. I will work on them soon.

Regarding the self-rule, I found something on the Westminster Act of 1931 that only became effective in 1942 with retrospect to 1939. It was probably far less impactful than the federation of 1901.

I finally made it to Australia! Even though I can pay by card anywhere I tapped some money from the ATM to get an idea how notes and coins are currently used. Nothing too special in my change so far except for a 1997 circulating commemorative Dollar with an aviation theme.

It is actually really weird to see those small $2 coins in practice.



Still heavily jet lagged, but sure to enjoy myself the next two weeks :-)

Those small $2 coins are great. You do tend to accumulate a few in change but they are not too heavy.

I like to pump them into Supermarket self serve checkouts for an item that is say $10 but only put $8's worth in, then a few smaller coins up to a total value of say $9.60 .. Then stick in a $10 or $20 note as well to see what you get back in change.

Yesterday I got a 2019 20 cent and a 2018 $2 red poppy coin in change by doing the above.

Cheers Mike

Just to show you all how small those coins are, here is a 1991 set of coins showing relative sizes.

I chose 1991 as it was the last year of the 1c and 2c coins and you can see all 8 coins used at one stage. Of course now it is just the 5c - $2 used.



The 1c to 20c were introduced on Decimal day 14 Feb 1966, a silver 50 cent was also added, but this was not minted after 1966.

In 1969 the large 12 sided cupro nickel 50 cent was minted and is still today, being 33mm in size and weighing 15.5grams, they are known as pocket killers.

The $1 coin was added in May 1984 and was popular, however in 1988 the $2 coin was desired and the people would not take an even larger coin, with the huge and increasingly worthless 20c and 50c coins in use, so a smaller one was made being slightly larger than the 5c (20.5mm).

However the $1 and $2 are aluminium brass and a lot fatter than the cents coins.

The 1c and 2c were last minted for circulation in 1990 and in sets in 1991, they were demonitised not long after.

Australia also has lots of circulating commemoratives and NCLT coins.

One must wonder if they will follow the rest of the Pacific and shrink their coin sizes, only them and PNG have not.

Just a small update to Moneytane's excellent addition to this discussion. Australian 1 and 2 cent coins have not been demonetised. They have been withdrawn from circulation but are still legal tender.

The withdrawn coins were melted down and used to create the Bronze Medals at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

The RAM have actually issued a couple of 1 and 2 cent coins since they were withdrawn, albeit as NCLT. You can actually spend them if you so desired.

All Australian pre decimal currency has not been demonetised either. You can still exchange pennies, threepences, sixpences etc at banks. Very occasionally you can still find pre decimal coins in circulation. I have personally picked up a florin in a roll of 20 cent coins.

Cheers Mike

Very interesting and I never knew that.

I did know about the Mr Squiggle 1 cent and some other NCLT one, also the 2006 pair in the sets.

The Florin must have been a good find!

The old paper banknotes are still legal tender too. I got a whole stack of them from one of the banks. I made a little bit of money selling them on Ebay 😁

I might do some good and make a post or two here about the history of our coinage based on the information I know (If you haven't figured out by my username yet I live in Australia). Please note that I will not be going into excessive detail about anything pre-Federation (or pre-1910 for that matter) as it does not interest me, BUT I will touch on it at the start. I should also outline that I will not mention any antique coins, any precious metals from the Perth or RAM mints, or any other of that jazz, just ordinary coins for circulation.

 

Anyway without further ado:

 

PRE-FEDERATION

I guess you could consider the year 1800 has the beginning of Australian coinage. The colony/s which make up Australia had been founded around 12 years before, and there was always a shortage of coins for transactions, with most day to day transactions processed through a barter system. Eventually, colonial authorities issued a proclamation on 19th November, 1800, designating a number of British and foreign coins as legal tender. These included coins such as one and two-pence cartwheels, Spanish Reales, Rupees from the East India Company, and a number of others. The Governor at the time, Lachlan Macquarie, also requested authorities in London for currency help, and so 10,000 pounds of Spanish Dollars were sent to the colony in 1812. Holes were punched through the coins to make them of a smaller denomination, and they thus gained the nickname of Holey Dollars and Dumps. 

 

The Bullion Act of 1852 authorised local striking of gold coins in denominations of 10/-, one pound, two pounds, and five pounds. This, and combined with the gold rush during that period of time, persuaded London to open a branch of the Royal Mint in Sydney for striking of gold sovereign coins, with an Act regulating it passing in 1855. The Sovereigns would share the same reverse design as most other places in the British Empire. Due to high demand the coins were made legal tender in Victoria and South Australia in following years, with mint branches opening in Melbourne and Perth to strike Sovereigns as well. The Sovereigns were initially restricted to use in Australia, but after 1866 they became legal tender alongside sovereigns struck in other places. As a result, 40% of sovereigns circulating in the UK by 1900 were from Australia.

 

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AFTER FEDERATION

After Federation in 1901, a need for local currency arose, and so legislation was passed in 1909 for the first minting of Australian coins. The first coins came in the denominations of threepence, sixpence, one shilling, and one florin. They were all sterling silver (.925) and were struck at the Royal Mint in London with a crowned and robed effigy of Edward VII by George William de Saules. Back then, the general rule was coins made for use in a colony or Dominion were to have a crowned effigy of the ruling monarch, with coins for the United Kingdom allowed to have an uncrowned portrait. However in this case Australian sovereigns continued to be struck after 1910 featuring an uncrowned effigy of Edward VII!

 

The first shipment of coins arrived in Australia, ironically the King died by the time the coins arrived. Today you can pick up a VG-grade coin for $5-$30 depending on the denomination. Luckily with the Australian mints all set up for production of the new pieces by 1911, a new effigy with George V (again) crowned and robed by Bertram Mackennal appeared. Bronze halfpenny and one penny coins also began production in this year too. From here onward, production of the coins would revolve between the mints in Australia and the mints in London and India. (That would probably explain how a halfpenny mule with an Indian quarter-anna obverse ended up being struck).

 

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NO MORE GOLD

As the title suggests, production of half and one sovereign coins ceased in 1916 and 1931, respectively. Meanwhile, the first commemorative coins to be ever issued in Australia were struck, all being florins; the first one from 1927 commemorating the opening of the new (old) Parliament House in Canberra. This featured a cropped effigy of George V and (what I think is) a beautiful reverse design. The next commemorative coin was issued in 1934/1935 to celebrate the centenary of the founding of Melbourne. This coin features a naked rider on a horse and the Percy Metcalfe effigy of George V (used on NZ, Fiji and Rhodesian coins). This actually has the scarcest mintage out of all the silver pound coins and fetches a few hundred even in a bad condition! This was also released in a case? and a bag I think which is equally as rare and expensive.

 

When George V died in 1936 he was replaced by Edward VIII, however due to his abdication no coins featuring his portrait have ever been issued (although on the banknote side of things there is a single specimen one pound note featuring him belonging to the Reserve Bank). George VI subsequently took over, and a “commemorative” crown was issued in 1937 to celebrate his coronation. For some reason the government restruck it in 1938 and thus withdrew it after complaints and negative feedback from the public. During WW2 with the threat of the Japanese breathing down on the Australians a number of coins were struck at the San Francisco Mint. New reverse designs had been rolled out across all denominations (except the sixpence) to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the First Fleet (I think?) a few years earlier. 

 

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NO MORE STERLING EITHER

In 1946 to pay off debts accumulated during the war the silver content in the coins dropped to .500. Another minor change to the coins occurred in 1948 when the title IND IMP was removed from the legend on the obverse due to the independence of India that year. In 1951 a third commemorative florin was released to celebrate 50 years of Federation. When Elizabeth took the throne in 1952, coins featuring her portrait by Mary Gillick were issued the following year. The title FIDEI DEF was removed in the first few years of her appearance on coins before it returned in 1956?. A fourth florin commemorative was also released in 1954 to commemorate the Royal Visit to Australia that year. 

 

Now anyway, the system that the Pound worked in was complicated. One pound was worth twenty shillings, each shilling made of twelve pence, and each pence made up of two half pennies. As a result, this system was very fiddly and mistakes were easily made when calculating transactions. So in the 1960s the Government looked into the possibility of Decimal Currency, and soon decided it was time to change things up …

 

although this is where I am going to leave my info for now, it is very late here in Australia when I'm posting this (not actually, its 9pm, but I'm an early sleeper), so tomorrow I'll finish off with the decimal part of this series. If you see any mistakes or wrong info here, just add it down below. Stay tuned, I guess?

Thanks OzCollection - You have summarised the early years really well. I look forward to your next installment. 😃

 

Cheers Mike

Looking forward to the 2023 coins from Australia - which will have King Charles III's portrait on them.

 

Aidan.

brismike - Thanks and that's saying something because I'm not even that interested in Pre-Federation currency!

 

Anyway let's continue with this installment:

 

DECIMALISATION

As previously mentioned, the 1960s saw the government announce a switchover of currency, with the date of changeover fixated as February 14, 1966. Now, in order to ensure as much of Australia had the new coins and banknotes, seventy drivers were tasked with the job of driving truckloads of the new money to banks across the country in an operation known as “Operation Fastbuck”. When changeover occurred, you were allowed to cash in any of your old pre-decimal banknotes and coins into the Reserve Bank or your local bank in exchange for the new currency. Stocks of the old banknotes were subsequently holed and burned.

 

There were six new coins at the time of changeover; the one and two cent coins, which were copper, the five, ten and twenty cent coins, which were cupro-nickel, and the fifty cent coin, which was .800 silver. All coins had a new portrait of the Queen by Arnold Machin on the obverse, with designs of Australian wildlife on the reverse by Stuart Devlin. The five, ten, and twenty cent pieces all bore the same size as the sixpence, shilling, and florin coins respectively. Experimental minting of the coins began in 1964/1965, with actual minting of the coins beginning in 1966 (some coins were actually minted in London in case the newly opened Canberra Mint couldn't cope with demand, whereas the copper coins were also partially minted in Melbourne and Perth).

 

Pretty soon the new currency ran into some problems, especially with the fifty cent piece. At the time, the coin had a bullion value of 54 cents each, so people were hoarding them then melting them down and making money. The government not wanting this to continue withdrew the fifty cent in 1967 and introduced the current twelve-sided cupronickel piece in 1969 (although according to my Renniks guide a few patterns of the coin were made in 1967). One year later in 1970 the first decimal commemorative piece was issued, a fifty cent commemorating the voyage of Captain Cook (actually fifty cents were the only denominations with commemorative issues until 1986).

 

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MULES, DOUBLE BARS, AND NEW PORTRAITS

In 1977 the only fifty cent pieces that were meant to be struck were to have a commemorative reverse celebrating the Queen's Silver Jubilee. However some Coat of Arms fifty cents from that year also managed to be struck and enter circulation, selling for thousands. In 1979 and 1980 a variation of the fifty cent piece was produced in which there were two lines behind the emu's head in the top right of the reverse. This, known as the “Double Bar variety”, was actually part of the original design by Stuart Devlin. However the lines were removed due to fears that they could wear out the coin stamp too quickly. 

 

In 1981 due to high demand some coins were produced at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant and the Canadian Mint in Winnipeg. This also probably explains how a “scalloped” twenty cent error coin emerged (basically, a twenty cent coin was accidentally struck on a Hong Kong $2 blank). Because of the very high mintage of 1981 and 1982 20 cent coins, no twenty cent pieces were issued for circulation between 1983 and 1993 (although it is known that 1983 and 1984 were minted in high numbers, but then melted down bar one $200 box of mint rolls), so unless you don't want to be stuck on twenty cent coin hunting for the rest of your life, go buy a mint set (or just buy a loose coin from eBay).

 

In 1985 the Queen's portrait was again changed to one by Raphael Maklouf for obvious reasons (do you really want to follow the example of Belize and stick with an old colonial portrait of the Queen for seventy years by the time she passes????). Around the same time, a one-dollar coin was also introduced to replace the $1 note, which was getting very worn in circulation. The coin showed five kangaroos, and did not feature in the mint set of 1984, but did appear in the 1985 set. The next year, 1986, only saw the one dollar being struck for circulation (probably due to high numbers of the remaining coins in circulation), whereas the next year, 1987, only saw the 1 cent and 5 cent issued due to economic problems at the time. ANOTHER mule was struck in 1988, this time being another fifty cent coin. That year the only reverse supposed to be in circulation was one commemorating the Bicentenary of Australia, however a few coat of arms (and even two SILVER proofs!) were struck. I found one of the mules on eBay for $75,000!

 

A two-dollar coin was also released in 1988 to replace the two-dollar note. The coin featured an Aboriginal Elder, some shrubs and the Southern Cross constellation, designed by Horst Hahne (and if you're not aware, his initials were originally on the bottom left corner of the design before being pulled in 1990. Then again we know some idiots think those HH coins are worth $10,000).

 

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THE 90S AND 00S

The early nineties saw the one and two cent coins discontinue production due to their non-existent purchasing power, and in 1994 the first twenty cent for circulation was struck for the first time in twelve years, and a year later, the first commemorative twenty cent was issued to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations. This period saw what I would consider the “NCLT” period kick off, with the first non-circulating commemorative dollar coin issued in 1992 to celebrate the Barcelona Olympics. The following year it was planned for a NCLT Landcare $1 coin to be released but due to demand for the coin it was actually released for circulation, with mintmark versions of the coins available for purchase. 

 

In 1999 another new portrait of the Queen was released designed by Ian-Rank Broadley. The next year saw a well-known error coin emerge on the commemorative Millennium fifty cent coin, known as the incuse (basically, the design showed a stylised Australian flag, but the “red” parts of the cross in the canton are sunken into the coin instead of being raised like the rest of the coin. Around 200K were minted and fetch a minimum of $30). 2000 also saw a new, home-grown portrait of the Queen by Vladimir Gottwald used on a commemorative fifty cent celebrating the Royal Visit that year.

 

In 2001 with the Centenary of Federation the Mint released what is considered to be the first “mini-sets” of coins, that being nine twenty cent pieces, ten fifty cent pieces and a special dollar. The fifty cents had the coat of arms of each state and territory as well as Norfolk Island, whereas the twenty cents were designed by students from high schools of each of the nine regions. The dollar is also well known for containing a rotation error.

 

For the next few years the coins mainly focused on one theme a year which was illustrated through the commemoratives and the mint sets. 2002 celebrated the “Year of the Outback”, 2003 commemorated “Volunteers”, 2005 marked the 60th anniversary of World War 2, 2006 celebrated the 40th anniversary of Decimal Currency (which included restrikings of the one and two cents as well as the silver fifty cent), and although they weren't issued for circulation, the next few years celebrated things like Lifesavers, the International Year of Planet Earth, et cetera. “Baby” versions of mint sets were released although I'm not sure what those were about.

 

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TODAY

The 2010s saw a dying-down of the commemorative craze for a few years before things REALLY picked up in 2012, where, after twenty-ish years, with the exception of the 2000 and 2011 low mint coins, of relative normality and quiet, saw the first commemorative two dollar coins released. The first one featured a Gold Poppy, whereas the second, much more rarer one, showed a coloured Red Poppy which was released through the RSL for a $10 donation and through the Mint as a C-mintmark strike. Since then there's been an explosion of coloured two dollar coins which is quiet hard to keep up with if you're trying to maintain a complete set of coins. 

 

2015 saw the first of four annual sets of coins celebrating the Anzacs released through the newspapers and sponsored by Westpac. All the coins were twenty cents and came with a booklet to store your coins in, with a special Nordic gold twenty-five cent piece following the next year. In 2016 two new things of note occured. The first was that we celebrated fifty years of decimal currency in Australia, which was commemorated with a special mint pack showing a unique obverse side of each of the coins with a shrunken down portrait of the Queen and a blank drawing of each of the old pre-decimal coins. The second was that the Mint started a new partnership with Woolworths which gave them the right to release special coloured two dollar coins through the checkouts, beginning with six coloured Olympic coins.

 

In 2019 the Mint in partnership with Australia Post released a collectable series of one-dollar coins known as the Great Aussie Coin Hunt. There were 26 coins to collect, each coin featuring a letter of the English alphabet and an Australian icon. There was also a special envelope privy mark coin for the letter A which was randomly placed in 20% of the tubes used to store the coins. You could buy the whole set for $49? at Australia Post with a folder included to store the coins. Before this there were actually a couple of alphabet series which were struck by the Mint, although these were not meant for general circulation and were only sold as collectors' items.

 

The later half of 2019 also ushered in the final portrait of Elizabeth II to be used on Australian coinage, designed by Jody Clark. Jody Clark had also previously designed the UK's final portrait of the Queen in 2015, with him calling the Australian portrait a “Commonwealth” portrait, meaning (like what happened in pre-decimal days with the crowned portraits of the monarch) that any Commonwealth country (bar the UK) that had the Queen as its head of state could use it.

 

In 2020 a scheme known as “Donation Dollar” began, which released a special green $1 coin designed to be “donated”. The following two years also saw two more Great Aussie Coin Hunt coin sets released through Australia Post, although this time the price dropped a couple dollars and the privy mark was replaced with a coloured letter coin (2021 being G and 2022 being X).

 

In 2022, the Mint released a couple of products which caught a LOT of attention and commotion. The first was a fifty cent piece commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) which was released for $15? I think. A lot of people took interest in this and the Mint soon sold out of them. However, the much more popular coin was the 2022 re-release of the famous Red Poppy. Only sixty-thousand were made, much less than the previous mintage of 500,000. As a result when the Mint shop opened on its release day it soon crashed and the only way you could buy one from the Mint was through a random ballot. Hoarders took advantage of the chaos and decided to sell the coins for massive prices (a few hundred bucks), whereas large coin stores limited one coin per customer. Actually on some social media platforms you can even find videos of long queues around the Mint before the release of the coin! Personally though? I think its a bit too much.

 

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And that's pretty much it for my recap on currency in Australia. It took me a solid half-hour to write this so I hope it was worth it!