On the 14th of May 1984 Australia released it's first one dollar coin to replace the dollar note. Coins have a longer service life to the paper notes that were in use so it had been decided to withdraw notes from circulation and replace them with a coin.
Designer Stuart Devlin who originally designed the decimal coin series released back in 1966 was invited to submit ideas for the design of the one dollar coin.
Proposed featuring animals for the one dollar coin was a penguin, wombat, a three kangaroo and a five kangaroo design. The shape of the coin was also considered with proposals for a seven sided coin and also a scalloped edge coin.
It was approved to release the new 25 millimetre aluminium bronze dollar coin with Devlin's image of 5 kangaroos nicknamed the "mob of roos" design. The Australian kangaroo having not made it onto decimal currency as yet and the roo being somewhat of a national icon acknowledged by tourists and visitors to our country, it was a fitting design for the new dollar coin.
The mob of roos dollar has now been circulating for 25 years and has proved to be one of the most popular designs on our coinage.
Posted by harrisk at June 13, 2009 3:00 PM
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