How Are Australian Coins Made

Spanish Coin from 1789 Auctioned Off in Australia

SYDNEY – A coin minted in Spain in 1789 for Britain, and which was in circulation during the first years of the British colony in Australia, has been sold at auction for A$485,000 (US$520,587), Australian media reported Monday.

The coin was part of an order for 40,000 pieces of eight, a silver coin worth eight reals, also known as the Spanish silver dollar, which the British Crown purchased to resolve the lack of money in Australia.

To keep them from being smuggled out of the territory, British authorities had a hole drilled in the center of the coins, which devaluated them somewhat but also made them easy to spot.

The coin probably went through several hands before reappearing in 1813 in Australia, Coinworks executive Melinda Cuppens told The Australian.

This is one of 200 coins of its type preserved in private collections, Cuppens said.

The Melbourne collector who acquired the piece in June was attracted both both its “beauty” and the fact that 2013 will mark the 200th anniversary since it surfaced again in Australia.

After being taken out of circulation, most of these perforated coins were returned to Britain to be melted down and sold as ingots.

Historic Australian Holey Dollar Fetches Record Price | CoinWeek

Coinworks has just sold an 1813 Holey Dollar, Australia’s first domestic coin, to a new owner for close to half a million dollars. The price of $485,000 is a world record.

While the buyer, a high profile Melbourne Graphic designer, appreciated the coin’s exquisite detail and beauty, his eye was firmly focused on its investment potential; particularly with the 200th anniversary of its striking coming up in 2013.

Belinda Downie , managing director of Coinworks says the coin is one of the best preserved of the 200 remaining in private collections.

“It’s probably in the top 10 of those holey dollars you could lay your hands on,” she said.

“What’s the probability that a coin struck in 1789, which was a great international trading coin, would circulate for 24 years beforehand, and virtually not have a mark on it (today)?”

The purchase comes almost 200 years after Governor Lachlan Macquarie bought 40,000 Spanish Silver Dollars to solve a currency shortage in its fledgling penal colony of New South Wales.

Macquarie enlisted the services of a convicted forger to cut a small hole in the middle of each Spanish Silver Dollar. The resulting coin – shaped like a donut – was re-stamped with a value of five shillings, the year 1813, and the issuing authority of New South Wales to become Australia’s first coin, the 1813 Holey Dollar.

The circular inner disc cut out of the centre was re-stamped with a crown, the year 1813, the issuing authority and the value of fifteen pence and became the 1813 Dump.

This clever measure provided an immediate 25 per cent profit on the purchase of the coins, doubled the number of new coins and drastically reduced the likelihood of their being taken out of the colony.

Withdrawn from circulation in 1829, the majority of Holey Dollars and Dumps were shipped to London and melted down, sold off as bullion silver. Of those that didn’t go to the smelter, there are now only some 300 known surviving Holey Dollars (around 200 of them in private hands) and about 800 Dumps.

There are eight distinctly different types of Holey Dollars, defined by the date, the design details of the original Spanish coin and the portrait of the reigning Spanish monarch.

This record breaking Holey Dollar is one of the rarest types – the Type 3 – so defined because it was converted from a Spanish Dollar bearing the legend and portrait of the deceased monarch, Charles III of Spain.

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