Right now all circulating Australian coins are made of two different metal alloys. 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, and 50 cent coins are silvery grey in colour and made from an alloy of 75% copper and 25% nickel. This alloy is typically referred to as Copper/Nickel or sometimes CuNi. The other two coins you’re going to find in your change the one dollar and two dollar coins and are pale gold in colour. These are made from alloy of 92% copper and 8% aluminium which is called Aluminium Bronze or AlBr.

Were Australian Decimal Coins Ever Made of Other Metals?

If you’re about 30 or older then you probably remember when one and two cent coins circulated in Australia. These coins were introduced in 1966 (along with the other decimal coins) and were withdrawn from circulation in early 1992. They were bright shiny orange when new and became a dull dark brown as they aged and were heavily circulated. Both the one and two cent coins were made from a bronze alloy which is 97% copper, 2.5% zinc and 0.5% nickel.

The other decimal coin that was made of a different material is the fifty cent coin. The current 50 cent coin as we know it has a distinctive dodecagonal 12 sized shape and was first released into circulation in 1969. However, when decimal coins were unleashed on Australia in 1966 the 50c coin was round and was an alloy of 80% silver and 20% copper. More than 36 million of them were minted and each contained nearly a third of an ounce of silver. Because of their silver content the intrinsic value of the metal they contained quickly outstripped the face value and they were hoarded in huge numbers by the Australian public. Because it was actually a loss making exercise to make the round fifty cent coins the government only made them for 1966 and rapidly withdrew them from circulation. You’re not likely to find a round fifty cent in your change but you’ve probably heard of them because they have achieved something of a legendary status among the Australian public.

Are Decimal Collector Coins Made from Other Metals?

The Royal Australian Mint (RAM) and the Perth Mint release a large number of coins for the collector market every year and have done so for many years. These coins, while technically legal tender, are not really intended to be used as money and are known as non circulating legal tender (NCLT). Australian collector coins have been made from almost every metal you can think of, including platinum, gold, silver, copper nickel, aluminium bronze, bronze, and copper. To work out what metal your collector coin is made out of you could Contact Us and describe your coin or you could go to your library and borrow a coin catalogue and look it up yourself.

What Were Australian Coins Made From Before Decimal Coins?

Before Australia moved to the decimal system in 1966 we were in what is known as the “pre-decimal” era and our coins used the pounds, shillings, and pence (£/s/d) system. Denominations minted for Australia from 1910 through to decimal changeover were the half penny, the penny, the threepence, the sixpence, the shilling, the florin, and the crown. The half penny and penny coins were made from the same bronze alloy that one and two cent coins were made from. Crowns (5 shillings) were only minted for 1937 and 1938 and were made of sterling silver which is 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper. Any threepence, sixpence, shilling, and florin dated BEFORE 1946 was also made from sterling silver. Australian silver coins dated from 1946 to 1964 were minted from an alloy known as “quaternary alloy” which is made up of 50% silver, 40% copper, 5% zinc, and 5% nickel.

Like the 1966 50 cent coins I mentioned earlier Australian silver pre-decimal coins have an intrinsic value above and beyond their face value. You can work out what the value of the silver they contain is by using our silver coin calculator here.

Are Australian Coins Ever Going to be Made of Other Metals?

While we can’t say for certain there’s at least some chance that our coins could be made of other metals at some stage in the future. The main reason for this would be to reduce the cost of manufacture of the coins. The difference in the cost of materials and manufacturing for a coin and it’s actual face value is known as “seignorage” and obviously the government likes to maximise this profit. Australia’s close neighbour, New Zealand, used to have circulating decimal coinage of the same size and composition as ours. But in 2006 they produced a new series of coins that were both smaller than the preceding decimal coins and made of different materials. This helped them realise a significant cost saving and resulted in a smaller, easier to understand coinage that has been widely accepted by the New Zealand public. Common sense dictates that Australia could follow the same path with our decimal coins at some point.

It you’re new to coin collecting in Australia then you’re probably aware by now that most Aussie collectors collect pre decimal coins in one form or another. It wouldn’t surprise me though, if you’re not exactly sure exactly what exactly is an Australian Pre Decimal Coin. And that’s not actually too unusual because it’s now rapidly approaching 50 years since the pre-decimal coin era finished. I’m 43 and I have exactly zero memory of seeing any pre-decimal coins in circulation.

So What is an Australian Pre-Decimal Coin?

The most generally accepted definition is that an Aussie pre decimal coin is any coin that was minted for circulation in Australia and is dated between 1910 and 1964. Pre-decimal coins were minted for Australia during this period in Australia itself (in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth), in Great Britain, in India, and in the USA. Coin denominations minted were the halfpenny (1/2d), the penny (1d), the threepence (3d), the sixpence (6d), the shilling (1s), the florin (2s), and the crown (5s). There were three basic units of currency, the pound (£), the shilling (abbreviated with an s), and the penny (abbreviated with a d). Two half pennies made up penny. There were 12 pennies to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound (£) sterling. Thus there were 240 pennies or 10 florins to each pound.

Reverse Designs of the Crown,Florin, and Shilling

Coins were minted in Bronze (the penny and half penny) and in silver alloy (threepence, sixpence, shilling, florin and crown). The silver coins had what is known as an intrinsic silver value due to the silver bullion each coin contained. The exact silver value of each coin depended on the year it was minted as silver coins dated prior to 1946 were minted in an alloy that was 92.5% silver while those dated from 1946 to 1964 was a 50% silver alloy. The bullion value of silver pre decimal coins is easily worked out using this calculator.

The design of our pre decimal coins did not remain stagnant. The obverse (or heads) design changed each time the reigning monarch of England changed. Portraits of Edward VII, George V, George VI, and Elizabeth II adorned the coins at one time or another. In addition, commemorative florins issued in 1927 and 1934 had slightly different portraits of King George V than what was seen on other coins. The reverse (or tails) side of pre-decimal coins underwent a major redesign in 1938 and 1939. The reverse designs of all the coins except the halfpenny changed in 1938 and that coin changed in 1939. The exception here is the crown (or 5 shillings) coin which was only minted for 1937 and 1938 and the design was the same both years.

Reverse Designs of the Sixpence, Threepence, Penny, and Halfpenny

On February 14, 1966 the pre-decimal era finished in Australia and the decimal era of dollars and cents began. While it’s nice to think that there was an instant change the reality was that pre decimal coins were assigned an equivalent value in dollars and cents and continued to circulate for a number of years after 1966. But the numbers dwindled fairly rapidly. My parents tell me that while it wasn’t common, it wasn’t actually that unusual to see florins in your change until the mid 1970’s.

What about Sovereigns and Half Sovereigns?

If it was up to me I’d include Australian minted gold sovereigns and gold half sovereigns in the definition of what makes up an Australian pre decimal coin. Both coins are 22 carat gold. Half sovereigns contain a bit under an eighth of an ounce of gold, are about the size of a modern five cent coin and were valued at half a pound or 10 shillings. Sovereigns are twice the weight of a half sovereign containing fractionally under a quarter of an ounce of gold, were valued at a full pound (or 20 shillings) and are a couple of millimeters in diameter smaller than a ten cent coin.

An Australian Gold Sovereign

Sovereigns and half sovereigns were minted for circulation in Australia from 1855 until 1919 (in the case of halves) and 1931 for the full sovereigns. During this time they were minted at the Australian branches of the Royal Mint in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth.

What I’m Not Including in Pre-Decimal Coinage

I’m going to exclude any English coinage that might have circulated in Australia in the second decade of the 20th century and prior to this period. While British coins did circulate here in that period they are not intrinsically Australian and cannot be classified as Aussie predecimals. To my mind these coins are British and should be collected as such. Of course they could easily be included in a collection of “coins that circulated in Australia”.

I’m also going to exclude colonial coins such as Adelaide Pounds, Assay Office Ingots, traders tokens, Taylor gold tokens, holey dollars and dumps, and proclamation coins. While it could be argued that all of these coins are “pre-decimal” because they were valued in pounds, shillings, and pence I believe they fit neatly into another category of collecting. That of Australian Colonial coins and Proclamation Coins.

Platypus 20 Cent Coin Reverse (1972)

The Australian 20 cent coin has been minted since 1966 to the present day and is highly collected and loved. It has been released with many commemorative designs both for circulation and for the collector market. The swimming platypus reverse is the standard iconic design by Stuart Devlin.

The twenty cent is 28.52 millimetres in diameter and is struck on a round shaped copper-nickel planchet of 75% copper and 25% nickel. It has edge reeding or milling and weighs 11.31 grams, the same size and weight as a pre-decimal florin.

The standard reverse or tails side of the Australian 20 cent is the design of a swimming platypus by coin designer, sculptor and master silversmith Stuart Devlin. Of all the standard Australian circulating coin designs that Mr Devlin engraved this platypus is his favourite. There is a perception of depth in the design that he sought to capture with this coin winning the hearts of a nation. It is one of the most highly collected denominations.

Stuart Devlin now lives in England but in 1963 resided in Melbourne where he entered a competition to design the new decimal coins for the changeover to decimal currency in 1966. The decimal 20 cent would replace the silver one florin in the old money. The twenty cent platypus design carries Mr Devlins SD initials next to the to the claw at approximately 9pm.

The platypus design was not issued for circulation every year so some dates must be obtained from Mint Sets. Almost all the coins have been minted at the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra although in 1966 some coins were struck in London and in 1981 Wales and Canada. The Canadian coins having a distinctive missing claw (or 3.5 claws) mintmark/variety. One particular die that struck coins in London in 1966 had a wave on the top of the baseline of the 2 and is called the Wavy 2 or Wavy 20 variety, these coins can be found in your change and can be worth hundreds of dollars.

Many commemorative 20 cent coins have been struck for both circulation and collectors. It’s always a surprise to get something different in your change and discover what event or milestone Australia celebrates. We began to issue commemorative 20 cent coins in 1995 with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations and then theSir Donald Bradman tribute coin in 2001. Following this a barrage of commemorative coins entered circulation and many more were minted for collectors called NCLT that were released in special packaging but were not intended to circulate. The list of commemorative coins you could find in your change (at this time) is almost 20 different coins!

Every coin features the denomination on the reverse and the obverse has seen three different portraits of Queen Elizabeth II. From 1966 to 1984 the twenty cent was minted with the Arnold Machin portrait of the young Queen. From 1985-1998 it was struck with the Raphael Maklouf portrait and today (from 1999 to the present) we see the mature depiction of QEII by Ian Rank-Broadley.

Slight variations in the obverse design can be found with the Mint trialing newer technology resulting in 2004 a large head and small head Queen obverse and differences in the font of the IRB initials of designer Ian Rank-Broadley. In 2013 the Mint struck the platypus 20 cent piece in their 6 coin uncirculated set in hyper-metallic colour!

The Australian 20 cent platypus in colour!

Error 20 cent coins can show up from time to time and can be very spectacular. Of particular rarity are the platypus 20 cent being struck on a Hong Kong $2 scallop shaped planchet of which only a handful are known and also the platypus design struck on a bi-metal planchet is sure to stick out and be noticed as something unusual! These are however coins made in error where wrong planchets have been mixed up in the barrels of blanks and can fetch thousands of dollars on the collector market. Other known 20 cent error coins are more commonly found but still keenly sought the partial collar error, clipped planchet error, split planchet error andlamination flaws.

To date over 1.8 billion uncirculated 20 cent coins have been minted to be carried around in Australian pockets! Check out the mintages in our handy online tool Australian Coin Mintages. This tool is a work in progress so please excuse it’s incompleteness.

Platypus 20 Cent Coin Obverses from left Machin, Maklouf and Rank-Broadley portraits of Queen Elizabeth II

Australia 2012 AFL Premiers 1 Dollar Corporate Gift Pack

Unknown to the coin collecting community in 2012 the Royal Australian Mint in conjunction with Australia Post and the Australian Football League (AFL) released a commemorative 1 dollar coin which was distributed as a gift at AFL corporate functions in different packaging to what we’ve already seen this coin in. Officially released to stamp and coin collectors in a pnc (philatelic numismatic cover) this coin appears again with a small card in a sealed bag and was given away as memorabilia of the AFL 2012 season at official AFL corporate functions.

Update 2015: This special packaging issue appears for the first time in the 22nd (2015) edition of the McDonald’s pocket guide to Australian Coins and Banknotes catalogue. With an issue of 2,500 of these corporate gift packs it’s rare to see them for sale.

Australia 2012 AFL Premiers 1 Dollar