I brought back quite a few Australian coins with me this trip. I’d been doing this every year and it was time to sort them!
Australia has minted many variant designs for most of its coins, especially in the years since I left. Whenever I find something new in my change I hang on to it and over the years I’ve accumulated many different coins.
These are the 20 cent coins, with the normal version in top left. Some of the these commemorate such things as the United Nations, volunteers and even the taxation office! One stands out in particular, mostly since it’s a bit hideous:
The world went crazy for that wedding didn’t they?
I’ve got seven unique 20 cent coins but there have been nineteen in total! I’ll have to keep looking in future trips.
There’s a lot of 50 cent coins in my collection! This is unsurprising since the earliest commemorative coins were 50s and some of the above date to my youth and came to America with me back in 1993! Including this one:
That’s from 1970 and was the first ever Australian commemorative coin. Others in the above picture were minted for various Commonwealth Games, in memory of wars, to commemorate federation or social events.
Then there’s this interesting example:
The normal 50c is at left, and a 2016 variant is shown at right. I only learned of this preparing this post but in 2016 to celebrate 50 years of decimal currency Australia minted coins of every denomination with variant ‘heads’! I only have the 50c, but am very interested in the others since they include the only commemorative 10 and 5 cent coins!
There’s the dollars, with the normal version in top left. There’s lots of different types, commemorating things like women’s suffrage, ‘the international year of older persons’ and scouting. My favourite is this one:
That’s actually to commemorate the first fleet, despite being an aboriginal design. It’s another coin I brought with me when I came here.,
The current gems of my $1 collection are these:
‘The Great Aussie Coin Hunt’ was a series of 26 $1 coins minted last October and exclusively available in change from post offices in Oz. I knew about them and wanted them and mum said she’d try and get some. Cagily she had told me she only found a few but on Christmas Day my gift from her was the full set! She’d collected them all in secret 🙂
They’re all whimsical, and the best is probably this one:
My $2 coins are a weird bunch:
First of all yes, many are colourized! Secondly, most of these aren’t actually listed in the list of commemoratives I’ve been referring to (and I don’t actually have many on that list). A quick search online revealed that most of these (including Possum Magic and – an Xmas gift from AW – Mr Squiggle) were exclusively distributed at one Australian grocery store during very limited periods!
I reckon it’s mostly luck I have so many of these given how limited they were, but now I want the actual commemoratives I don’t own!
In addition to these I have some ‘retired’ coins:
A set of uncirculated coins:
And a selection of special coins purchased directly at the store at the Canberra mint:
But I’m most a fan of the actual coins that are circulated; the ones I’ve collected myself during my visits. Making this post has educated me on how many more there are, so you can bet I’ll be keeping a close eye on my change for many future trips to come.
Now where is that merino ram 50 cent coin I was sure I owned….?
