A little question for the Aussie numismatists [solved]

Hello,

I was going through my British Empire collection earlier and noticed (again) that Australia's pre-decimal coinage has no half crown denomination coin. So my question is, does anyone know why that is?

All the other British dominions and colonies that used £sd had half crown coins; New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia/R&N come to mind. The only one I can think of that didn't is Fiji.

There are others, Fiji didn't have the half crown either.

From what I understand, when the UK coins were circulating the half crown wasn't very popular, and the intention when producing their own coins was to eventually switch to a decimal system, so the unpopular large half crowns weren't used.

Here's a 1909 Newspaper article about it

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5754572

Thanks, that's a very interesting article. I particularly like their description of an Aussie coin, which is evidently describing this pattern coin that ended up being passed over for the coat of arms design that lasted until 1937.

"The coins, as is now well known, are to
have on the obverse side the crowned head
of the King. On the reverse side is to be
a map of Australia, including Tasmania,
with the denomination of the coin and the
year in which it was minted."

-The Advertiser, Adelaide, 1909

Anyway, I expected the reason for a lack of an Australian 2'6 coin to be something like that; but I'm still curious as to why it was unpopular in Australia? In the UK, the half crown was the largest (in both size and value) circulating denomination commonly seen by most people in daily life, and it remained a popular coin that circulated all the way up until decimalisation in 1971.

It doesn't seem to have had the same effect when the other dominions (except Canada & Newfoundland) began issuing their own coins at par with the British pound sterling, either. Strange that this dislike of the half crown seems to be an Aussie thing.

​The half crown wasn't the largest UK coin, the UK had a full crown that circulated up until Edward VII and then they were only commemorative from George V on.

Perhaps they didn't like them because there wasn't much difference in size and value between the florin and half crown so it was a bit pointless to have both?

Quote: "neilithicman"​
​​The half crown wasn't the largest UK coin, the UK had a full crown that circulated up until Edward VII and then they were only commemorative from George V on.
​
​Perhaps they didn't like them because there wasn't much difference in size an value between the florin and half crown so it was a bit pointless to have both?

Uh.... ​I don't think so.

"By 1751 the popularity of the silver crown had declined and it evidently played a limited role in circulation. An attempt at revival was made in 1818 when Pistrucci’s head of George III was combined with his classic St George and the dragon to produce what was said to be one of the handsomest coins in Europe. But the crown failed to re-establish itself as a circulating coin, and was to do so again at the end of the century despite active efforts to promote its use."

I'll give you the fact of whether they circulated at all, but were they really a "circulating denomination commonly seen by most people in daily life"? They were certainly nowhere nearly as commonly used in the UK as the half crown, since decades before James Cook ever even set foot on Australia and certainly not by the turn of the 20th century.

But back to Australia; I think I solved my own enquiry:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/australia-half-crown-coins.140517/

It mentions there that Australia wanted to decimalise their coinage as early as 1902 and issue coins at par with a decimalised British pound sterling, with 10 florins in a pound, and a florin being 100 cents, a shilling 50 cents, and a sixpence 25 cents, but the half crown (125 cents) would have been an odd denomination out; so ultimately they left it out.

When the British got back to them pointing out that they weren't planning on doing that decimalising any time soon, the Coinage Act of 1909 was amended to make the coins at par with the pre-decimal British pound sterling, but the omission of mention of the half crown was a vestige of that earlier attempt at decimalising straight away.

No crowns (which would have been 250 cents) were mentioned either; and the Act was amended in 1936 to allow for the commemorative 1937-38 Australian coronation crown. Apparently British home coinage, including the 2'6 coins circulated freely in Australia until around 1920 as well, being gradually withdrawn from circulation.

I think you have pretty much answered your own question but here is some more reading material with a few different opinions. Happy reading

https://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=166734

Quote: "XRY-478"​I think you have pretty much answered your own question but here is some more reading material with a few different opinions. Happy reading
​
​https://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=166734

​Happy reading indeed, that link is awesome!

It seems like farthings were another British denomination the Aussies- and this time the New Zealanders too; didn't have either. It says after the 1920s, British coins still leftover down under were "repatriated" back to the UK, and now I'm wondering how many British coins might have continued hiding in Australian coinage after that.

Australia, Fiji and British West Africa were apparently the only places that used pound sterling to not issue 2'6 coins alongside their florins.

I'd say this one of mine saw plenty of circulation....





Pretty much all the crowns I've seen have been this condition or worse, the mint may have reduced production due to lack of popularity, but the ones they did produce obviously circulated pretty readily.

"The only crown issued during the reign of Edward VII was in 1902, his Coronation year. Although this is a scarce year, many of the surviving Edward crowns show considerable wear, which is clear evidence that crowns were still used in everyday circulation. It is the last date of crown to have seen normal use in circulation." (From "The story of the British crown")

Well, I read something about Australian rejected designs for the 1937 coinage and the most striking are the koala for 1/2 penny and emu for 6 pence. That way, the Australian coin set of the time would be much prettier.

Hmm, I've got a few circulated crowns from the same era too:





I even have a 1937 crown, a coin that wasn't supposed to have circulated at all and can usually be found in pretty good shape, that looks pretty circulated (perhaps a pocket piece?):


Tony Clayton's Coins of the UK writes (about those active attempts to promote it's use):

.... circulating (crown) coins were issued in 1844, 1845 and 1847. These have more or less the same design as the half crown.

As part of the redesigning of the coinage for the Queen's Jubilee in 1887, the decision was made to start issuing crowns on a regular basis. These used Pistrucci's St George and the Dragon on the reverse until the end of the Queen's reign in 1901, initially with the Jubilee Head design.

After the reign of Queen Victoria the crown was really only struck for commemorative or collectors' purposes.

Essentially, yes, it circulated, but I find it hard to believe the crown circulated to anywhere near the extent other silver denominations did. That's why I called the half-crown the "highest circulating denomination commonly seen by most people" earlier.

"A crown was a silver coin worth 5s - though much more common was the half-crown worth 2/6 ...."

One more thing I'm interested in knowing about; why did Australia and New Zealand never issue farthings?

I read in XRY-478's link that sometimes, stores would sell something that was four pounds, nineteen shillings and eleven and 3/4th pennies, so that you would get a farthing back in change. Those farthings were usually specially ordered from the UK, and were usually souvenirs of the sale rather than actually spendable (e.g. 4 farthings wouldn't be accepted in Australia for a penny).

It's like if a Finnish or Dutch store today sold something for 4,99€ (those countries now round to the nearest .05 cents), but imported 1 Euro Cent coins from another Eurozone country to give as change to customers.

That one I don't know. Even back when traders were minting coins to cover the shortfall of low denomination coins in the country they only made halfpenny and penny tokens

Anecdotal evidence,Bill Mollison, who grew up in Australia in the 1930s, tells a whale story that features a two and six...