Australia 2003 Australia's Volunteers 1 Dollar
2003 saw the Royal Australian Mint consult with the peak volunteering body, Volunteers Australia to design a set of coins celebrating the contribution of more than 4 million volunteers. A 20 cent, 50 cent and $1 coin were designed and minted with the catchy byline, "Australia's Volunteers : Making a Difference" to highlight the work carried out by these important people. All 3 commemorative coins incorporated designs to honour Australia's volunteers. The dollar coin was released into general circulation and was available in uncirculated mint and baby mint sets, in gem uncirculated condition in the Wedding Sets, and in proof condition in various proof sets. Interestingly the map of Australia on the proof coin was pad printed rather than struck onto the coin.
The 2003 Australia's Volunteer dollar was a general circulation release (4.149 million minted) and was struck in the usual aluminium bronze material and with interrupted edge reeding. Another 120,000 or so were minted in uncirculated condition for mint and baby mint sets and about 55,000 proofs were struck for proof and baby proof sets. Interestingly just 3,249 were struck in gem uncirculated condition for Wedding Specimen sets making it a rare AlBr dollar indeed. Finally, 6,500 were struck in 0.999 silver proof condition for the first release of the Fine Silver Proof Set.
Seen above the obverse of the coin depicts the Ian Rank-Broadley portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. The reverse of the coin was sculpted by Wojciech Pietranik. It depicts a stylised map of Australia surrounded by the legend: "Australia's Volunteers: Making a Difference". As mentioned previously the map of Australia on the proof AlBr version of the coin is applied in green and gold ink via a pad printing process rather than struck onto the surface of the coin.
For accurate coin mintage data please see the 2003 Australian 1 Dollar Coin Mintages table.
Posted by mnemtsas at August 23, 2009 4:14 PM
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