Old Australian Coins

[Phillips]

anyone know a website where they list the values of old Aussie coins, such as: one penny's, shilling's etc etc

cause i was on ebay and saw someone trying to sell a 1925 one penny and it had bids up to $200 on it

reason why i ask is because myself and my brother have a few old coins laying around, and i wanna find out how much they could be worth...

 

[Willow]

I dont know if there's a website for it but 'Renniks' have been publishing coin valuation books for over 40 years and are probably the standard.

Most coin dealers will give you a free valuation.

But dont get your hopes up. In most cases, the coins are pretty to look at but are worth very little. Even with the more valuable coins, they need to be in 'Extremely Fine' condition before anyone takes too much notice.

But there are exceptions, if have a 1930 penny, you've struck oil as only a small number were minted. They're worth anything from $15,000 to $300,000 depending in the condition. I've only ever seen one behind glass.

The rest of the pennies are not nearly as spectacular. but look for the dates, 1920, 1925, 1933, 1940, and 1946. Those dates are worth anything from $10 to several hundred dollars... or even a few thousand. But they would have to be in mint condition to fetch that. Most coin collections are in tins or jars and are well scratched.

 

[bartman]

The original round 50c pieces are worth a little bit too I think?

 

[Phillips]

thanks for that Willow, much appreciated

 

[Phillips]

The original round 50c pieces are worth a little bit too I think?

i hope so, cause ive got a couple :lol:

 

[Willow]

The original round 50c pieces are worth a little bit too I think?

They only made those in 1966 in the first year of decimalisation. They were ditched (I think) because they were getting mixed up the slightly smaller round 20c coins.... and now we have the flat edged versions.

If you're collecting them that's great but they made about 36 million of them, and unfortunately they're only worth a couple of dollars each... better than face value I suppose.
Serious collectors, aka people with an unnatural attraction to coins, will have the round 50c pieces in original machine rolls, uncirculated and in true mint condition. Not sure how many they have in a roll but 25 of them wouldnt be worth much more $150.

 

[Weasels Ripped My Flesh]

Paying $200 a penny? hmmm...

 

[bartman]

Wow machine rolls... that's serious :lol:

 

[weasel]

They still have round fifty cent coins in NZ and it's terribly confusing. When I was over there I kept paying for small things with notes because I didn't want to keep the clerks waiting trying to figure out what loose change I had.

 

[innsaneink]

When I first started working, we used to get paid cash in our pay packets, way back before auto bank transfers etc........ i quite often got new notes $2 & $5 & sometimes 10's with 'Commonwealth of Australia' at the top.
Collected quite an amount worth of em, they were not as common as the majority of notes. Werent worth anything too much anyway I think.

The majority of notes just had 'Australia'......unfortunately some tuff times were ahead and i had to spend em.

 

[misty]

I have a $1 and $2 note I wonder if they would be worth anything now, I can't believe they even made 1 and 2 dollars in notes to start with.

 

[Willow]

You couldn't have $1 or $ coins in the 1970s because then people's pockets would be weighed down with too much coinage.
Wages were lower and $1 and $2 used to buy more. People looked after their notes.
When they became less valuable in real terms, they got scrunched into people's pockets and were constantly being forced out of circulation.

Its all relative. In the 1800s, there used to be 'sixpence' (5 cents now) and 'shilling' (10 cents) notes.

nospam49, I've got a few of those 'Commonwealth of Australia' notes stashed away somewhere. I think they only made them in 1966 before dropping the words 'Commonwealth of..'
Don't know what they're worth.... more than face value. Depends on the serial number. Look for an asterix after the serial number (called 'star notes') as they're quite sought after.

 

[antonius]

The original 50cent was taken out of circulation because the silver content was a greater value than the actual coin. There was a quite a buisness going on melting them down and selling the silver. They changed the content to copra-nickle, then did away with the round ones altogether. So in fact there are two different round 50cent coins, one Silver, the other coppra-nickle. Some of the decimal coins are now becoming quite valuable. the 1969 1cent for example had a low mintage, and is now even harder to come by because most have been destroyed when 1 cent and 2 cent coins were discontinued. I started collecting decimal coins some time ago and have one of each coin every year since 1966 in uncirculated condition. I will pass them onto my kids when the time comes. I figure in years to come they will be as valuable as some of the old pre decimal coins. I am sure a google search would turn up a site with values on it.

 

[mightybears]

decimal currency
on early 'commonwealth of australia' notes, the signature is king
my mum has/had a sh*t load and recently offloaded some of the more valuable sig n star combos [ they have a star mark after the serial number]
i think its "wilson stars" that have a lot of worth, not sure,
but generally star notes [even one in average condition] are always worth something
the round 0.50 cents are only worth about $1.50, dealers sell em for $3 or $4

pre decimal
and the 1930 penny is king-big time, as willow said

 

[mightybears]

The original 50cent was taken out of circulation because the silver content was a greater value than the actual coin. There was a quite a buisness going on melting them down and selling the silver. They changed the content to copra-nickle, then did away with the round ones altogether. So in fact there are two different round 50cent coins, one Silver, the other coppra-nickle. Some of the decimal coins are now becoming quite valuable. the 1969 1cent for example had a low mintage, and is now even harder to come by because most have been destroyed when 1 cent and 2 cent coins were discontinued. I started collecting decimal coins some time ago and have one of each coin every year since 1966 in uncirculated condition. I will pass them onto my kids when the time comes. I figure in years to come they will be as valuable as some of the old pre decimal coins. I am sure a google search would turn up a site with values on it.

up till somedate in ww2, the florin also had a bloody high silver content
when silver prices boomed after the war, all those florins effectively dissappeared from circ because they were being melted for their silver value

also they experimented with square pennys or half penny after ww1
bugger all minted, find one today-worth heaps

 

[Squishy_Da_Byatch]

We have a whole tin of polished up Pennys and I have a few Yen and a couple of Escudo

 

[Willow]

Antonius, a lot of those 1 cent coins were destroyed but to put in it perspective, over 90 million of the 1969 1 cent coin were minted.
Renniks (2004) tells me it was the 1 cent coin from 1968 that had a low mintage, but still around 20 million. You might want to check the date.
The same book says the 1968 1 cent piece in uncirculated condition is worth about $25. This is probably retail and not what a dealer would pay.

BTW, My understanding us that 'uncirculated' means straight from the mint and without even a surface scratch.
I was once told that 'mint condition' is a special grade above uncirculated where the coin was removed after being stamped, and prior to be processed.
If you have a coin in nice shiny condition which you pulled out your wallet in the year of its manufacture, and IF you packaged it in such a way that it couldnt be scratched any more, then you might have a coin in 'Extremely Fine' (EF) condition.

In any case, its best not to get your hopes up. The whole thing about a coin's value depends on it's rarity. Even second house will have a tin or a jar full of old coins. People like us hoard these things for years. lol

 

[OVP]

I have a 1914 or 1915 Australian florin somewhere about the house. Any chance its valuable ? How do you find out ?

 

[antonius]

Antonius, a lot of those 1 cent coins were destroyed but to put in it perspective, over 90 million of the 1969 1 cent coin were minted.
Renniks (2004) tells me it was the 1 cent coin from 1968 that had a low mintage, but still around 20 million. You might want to check the date.
The same book says the 1968 1 cent piece in uncirculated condition is worth about $25. This is probably retail and not what a dealer would pay.

BTW, My understanding us that 'uncirculated' means straight from the mint and without even a surface scratch.
I was once told that 'mint condition' is a special grade above uncirculated where the coin was removed after being stamped, and prior to be processed.
If you have a coin in nice shiny condition which you pulled out your wallet in the year of its manufacture, and IF you packaged it in such a way that it couldnt be scratched any more, then you might have a coin in 'Extremely Fine' (EF) condition.

In any case, its best not to get your hopes up. The whole thing about a coin's value depends on it's rarity. Even second house will have a tin or a jar full of old coins. People like us hoard these things for years. lol

LOL. yes you are correct Willow I checked when I got home yesterday and it is in fact the 1968 1 cent, not the 1969.The coins I have are the ones you buy straight from the mint in the packages. They are the uncirculated ones. The other packaged ones are the mint or "proof" coins as they are called, these are actually polished at the mint so the raised parts of the coin stand out. They are more expensive to buy from the mint. Example Uncirculated set is around $25.00, where-as the same set in proof condition costs around $90.00 plus.

 

[Willow]

Ah, so you actually bought them. Can't hurt.

About 10 years ago, I bought some gold sovereigns from 'the Monetarium' in Kogarah. I wasnt in the habit of buying coins as an investment because I was only a 'loose change' collector at best and had dropped the hobby when I was kid. But I figured these were special because they had come from a recently discovered wreck, 'The Douro', which has sunk in the Bay of Biscay in 1882.
The sovereigns had history, they were in EF condition, and in a run of dates, 10 coins in all. They also have a young Queen Victoria on the head side and StGeorge and the Dragon on tails side (Obverse and Reverse for the smartarses lol).

As far as I could tell, they were pretty unique and coin collectors will tell you that Sovereigns are good to have. I remember thinking that if I kept them for 20 years, they'd be worth a bit.

Anyway, I had them valued earlier this year and I was told they are worth slightly less than what I paid for them 10 years ago. LOL. A bit of a let down. Apparently finding a large shipment of these coins on the ocean floor made them less rare than before. Still, very nice to look at and they'll probably go up in value one day.