Keen banknote collectors will today be hitting the banks in attempt to get their hands on new $5 notes released into circulation today. The first denomination released in the “new generation” of banknotes is this 5 dollar note with improvements in security, anti-counterfeiting and the addition of tactile features to help the vision impaired. Those of you looking in your wallet and at your change you will notice an aged Queen, added toilet brushes wattle and a different aspect of Parliament House, an overall more colourful design to look out for.

One of the blog authors was lucky (or unlucky depending if you like early mornings) to be able to catch a 7:00AM flight on Saturday 27 August 2016 departing frigid Adelaide for the equally frigid (and much windier) Melbourne.  The destination?  The Melbourne 2016 ANDA Money Expo! Huzzah!  After a trip in a car, a flight, a bus ride, a walk, a tram ride, and another short walk I arrived at the Melbourne Park Function Center at few minutes after 10AM and was confronted by this:

I do so love lines.  After waiting in the aforementioned line for 10 minutes I paid my entry fee, a gold coin donation.  Certainly a welcome change from the $10 entry fee required to enter ANDA shows in years gone by.  Once in I saw…another line, this one comprised show attendees wanting to get their hands on a limited show release PNC which concerned Holden and cars.  Or something.  PNC’s are not my thing so I didn’t take much notice.  No doubt most of those same PNC’s are up on eBay as I write this entry being flipped for a quick and easy profit.  My last mention of lines involves the placement of the booth selling the Holden PNC.  It was right next to the door used to get into the show, which meant I had to step on the feet of people who were spending their time lining up to look at any of the dealer’s tables. Those same tables were blocked by the line for a good couple of hours.  Perhaps a better place for such a booth would be at the back of the room were the line could do it’s thing without getting in everyone’s way.

Right, now that the line has been put behind me let’s get onto the Exposition of Money.  The room was packed.  With dealers and attendees.  So packed that it was pointless trying to look at anything in detail before 1:00PM.  The size of the crowd certainly contradicted the mood of experienced collectors in the room who were be-moaning the drop in prices of quality pre-decimal material.  As I walked around I took note of what people were interested in, and I heard multiple requests for coronation $2 coins, ANZAC $2 coins, Olympic $2 coins, this mint set or that mint set, a particular year of 50c to fill a hole in a collection.  To me this is an enormously positive thing as the coin collector base grows from the bottom up and the flood of new collectors into the decimal market will surely lead to more demand in the pre-decimal market as those decimal collectors mature in their tastes and their interests expand into the more historical side of our domestic coinage.

All the usual array of dealers was at the show plus a couple I’ve not seen at ANDA shows before, namely Classy Collectables and Adam from Southern Cross Coins.  Also, there was a really cool setup for kids in one corner of the room where they could look through a huge pile (28.2 kilograms) of 5c coins and attempt to build a full collection.  I believe 3 1972 5c coins were found in the pile and claimed by happy pint-sized collectors.  What a great way of getting kids into collecting!  And they got a magnifying glass.  And it was FREE!  Amazing.  And well done to the show organisers for putting it on, with particular thanks to Andrew Crellin of Sterling and Currency who I believe was the driving force behind the 5 cent table.  There were also some interesting displays of 1930 pennies by Downies Auctions and ANDA President Belinda Downie had a case full of holey dollars and the very first every 10 shilling note.  Mmmmm, expensive!  There was a table for the Melbourne Numismatic Society and a set of displays put on by collectors that show attendees could vote on.

Buying at the show for me was pretty thin.  There wasn’t much in the way of quality raw pre-decimal present nor were there many errors of the type I am interested in.  There was a fair bit of quality world coin available but again, not really in my areas of interest.  However, despite all of this I managed to walk out of the show with a handful of interesting coins so the day was not a complete purchasing failure.

That about rounds it up for the show report so I’ll move along to the part of the show that made the trip really interesting.  Getting to meet and talk with two, living breathing RAM coin designers!  The RAM apparently has four full time designers so the fact that they let two of them loose from the confines of Canberra and unleashed ravenous coin collectors on them must mean they can fend for themselves.  And so they did.  The first designer who I got to bore to death with my silly questions was Stevan Stojanovic.  Stevan has been at the RAM for the last few years and has an extensive history as a coin designer and jeweler.  You can see the back of Stevan’s head in the image below.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the front of his head.  He’s working on a plasticine relief of two kangaroos based on the sketch to the left.  These are going to adorn next years Kangaroo series of coins from the RAM.  I talked to Stevan about the relief of the sculpted designs, how the designs were digitised and how CAD could adjust the relief of the designs to make the coins manufacturable and still show all of the artist’s work.

Probably Stevan’s best known work are the triangular ANZAC coins which you can see below along with the actual dies used to strike them. DROOL!  Above the coins are the plasters of the design.  You’ll probably note that the plasters don’t include all coin detail.  That’s because once digitised a lot of the design elements (like legends or flowers or other simple things) are added using a coin computer aided design program on the computer.  Once the designer is finished with the designs they are transmitted directly to the RAM tool room where a CNC machine cuts the dies.

The second designer I spoke to is responsible for this:

Which might not be immediately familiar unless I showed you this:

Yes, it’s a sculpted element used on the reverse of the multi-coloured 2016 Paralympic $2 coin.  That same coin that has whipped us all into a frenzy in the last couple of months as we climb over the dead bodies of those who get in our way to collect them from Woolworths.  Perhaps I exaggerate slightly when I speak of dead bodies but it certainly has been a frenetic few weeks as collectors have been gathering the $2 Olympic coins from good old Woolies.  The person who sculpted the design above and designed the rest of the coin can be seen below (yes I managed to get a picture of the front of her head).

Bronwyn King designed the multi-coloured $2 Paralympic coin, and for that matter ALL of the coloured Olympic coins that were released through Woolworths. On the screen in front of her you can see a digital representation of the reverse of the Paralympic coin. Almost all of the elements you can see were never actually sculpted in plaster or clay, but only ever existed on the computer before manufacturing dies were cut. Behind Bronwyn’s computer you can see a rack of coin plasters, which were the way coins used to be designed.

Coin designers would work in clay and plaster to create their design. From those plasters, moulds are made, then resin casts made from those moulds. Those resins were used in pantograph reducing lathes (like the Janvier machine) to transfer the designs into metal. On the rack above is an incredible slice of history showing how coins were made at the RAM in the recent and not so recent past. Amazing stuff!

So, that’s the 2016 ANDA Money Expo held in Melbourne. I hope I’ve given you a taste of what the day was like.

Our local coin club the Numismatic Society of South Australia is preparing for THE coin event of 2016 -the NSSA Coin, Banknote, Stamp & Collectable Expo to be held on the weekend of December 3rd and 4th 2016. Save the date everyone! This will be one of the last coin shows on the Australian numismatic calendar for 2016 and it’s big news for Adelaide and South Australians. Show organiser Richard Welling, president of the NSSA and owner of Ye Olde Coin Co promises it to be a great show and will help collectors to have a very numismatic Christmas.

Local and interstate dealers will be attending as well as people who just want to sell stuff -how cool is that! Attendees include Barrie Newman of the Adelaide Mint, Canberra Numisco, David Figg, Downies Melbourne, Edlins of Canberra, Eric Van Kruyssen, I.S Wright, Joe Peplinski, John Watson from Melbourne, Kevin Keepence, Mick Vort-Ronald, Steele Waterman Melbourne, Stephen Cole Salamanca Coins, The Purple Penny/The Australian Coin Collecting Blog, Tony Byrne coins,Trevor Wilkin Banknotes, Universal Coin Company Melbourne and Ye Olde Coin Co.

The show will be held in the heart of Adelaide at the Torrens Parade Ground Hall where there is free parking. It’s where the Royal Australian Mint had their pop-up shop on the Changeover Tour last ANZAC Day. The show will be open Saturday 3rd December 10 to 5 and Sunday 10 to 4. There will be an auction held Sunday afternoon. Light refreshments will also be available to purchase. There is also plenty of accommodations in close proximity ranging from cheap and cheerful to the extravagant for those needing to stay overnight.

The best news is that entry is free, so you have more…..money…..to spend on…….money.

If you have any coins, banknotes, stamps, collectables or associated ephemera and you’d like to see what they are worth then pop into the coin expo. Dealers will be buying and selling coins, banknotes and stamps as well as offering advice and providing valuations.

During the show there will be a raffle, tickets $1 each. 5 prizes include 1. Near Complete Australian Penny & Halfpenny sets in 2 albums, over 100 different dates/mintmarks. 2. Box of packaged Australian & World coins, 3. One Year subscription (11 issues) from the Australasian Coin & Banknote Magazine, 4. Brand new desk or table lamp and 5. Australian coin year set in folder, your choice of any year 1950-1963.

An auction will be held at 2:30pm on Sunday with over 150 lots currently on offer that number will surely rise. It will include an interesting range of Australian & World coins & banknotes on offer at reasonable reserves.

We’re coming to the end of the road to Rio and the end of the road for shopping at Woolworths…phew. I’ve spent the last 5 weeks going out of my way to shop at Woolworths to have that “chance” to receive an Olympic coin in my change.

Week one and the blue ring coins were in solid supply with what I could tell was every register containing the new shiny coins and there was no effort in receiving them. Whether you went through a regular checkout or a self checkout I found the coins were readily found. Week two and it was becoming a little harder although I still managed a good supply of black coins that carried over to the following week reducing the red coins obtained. Week three and the red coins didn’t go so well and we were onto Week four and the yellow coins before I had got many. It was becoming increasingly harder to “find” the coins though, no more self checkout joy and even the skillful additions in spending $5.25 and using a $10 note (or multiples of) to force 2 coins in change was not working. The coins were just not there, multiple purchases with no luck and heading to the service desk to ask politely for a coin that should have been in steady supply led to staff checking multiple registers to find just one coin. The availablity of security bags of the coloured coins at a hefty premium on sites such as eBay was also leaving a sour taste in my mouth as I was genuinely spending in Woolworths to feed my family of 6 and was keen to get a collection happening of these coins at face value, as a collector who wouldn’t? Not once had I asked Woolworths staff for an entire bag, perhaps I should have, but the fun of collecting these coins and the interest this type of release brings to collecting made me think these coins should have been gracing the everyday shoppers change much more frequently. The registers should have been full of them, the excitement of the Games and our achievements in your hand as you do your everyday shopping. This last week (five) has been the most promising week with regards to numbers of coins, a lovely staff member had green coins on hand and after I asked for Olympic coins in my change and with a friendly “how many” I responded with “how many can you give me” without wanting to get anyone in trouble I walked away with 5 coins from the one visit (interestingly this was a different Woolies to my local). What a win! So what were the rules for staff and the allocation of these coins? I have to say it seems like a massive free for all. Depending on what staff at what store the rules were different all round. It pays to shop around! As long as it’s just Woolworths!

If you didn’t want to put yourself through this “perhaps you’ll get one in change” or missed the allocation of all 5 Olympic coins in the folder distributed by Woolworths for $15 these are still available at the Mint or your local coin dealer for issue price which is equivalent to just $3 per coin. (edit: in the hour or so since publishing this article the Mint has sold out of this set).

My tally
Week 1. Blue. 8 coins
Week 2. Black. 13 coins
Week 3. Red. 8 coins
Week 4. Yellow. 7 coins
Week 5. Green. 13 coins (ongoing)

Next week should be even more exciting with multi-coloured Paralympic Games coins hitting the tills. Sadly a quick search of eBay shows a $50 face value bag of these coins already for sale with an asking price of $250. Hmm, a zero feedback seller obviously created a new ID for selling so they can’t be tracked down by their employer…..Woolworths. Another seller has already sold 5 bags @ $145 each with images showing they have stock and have shipped.

Sigh…..I’m off to Woolies for my one coin after spending $20 on my family dinner.