September 2011 Archives
2011 Grey-headed Flying Fox
The second coin of the last release in the Air series dollars from the Royal Australian Mint brings the Grey-headed Flying Fox to life in colour. This totals 6 coins released in the Air Series after the success of the coloured (06-07) ocean and (08-09) land series in previous years. Pad printed coloured designs all by Mint designer Caitlin Goodall leap from the frosted uncirculated coin housed in a protective blister snapped into an informative card. The obverse featuring the standard effigy of Queen Elizabeth II by Ian Rank-Broadley.
This 25mm aluminium bronze one dollar depicts the large, furry, fox-looking bat in full flight. These bats are Australia's largest feeding on fruit trees, flowers, nectar -they particularly like the lilly pilly fruit seen in the design. They can weigh up to 1 kilogram and can have a wingspan over 1 metre.
Issued at $14.95, find the mintage in the 2011 mintages table. See the other issues in the Air Series.
Everyone who has been excited and interested in the new research project "Your Mint Story" from the marketing company Colmar Brunton funded by the Royal Australian Mint will be keen to know that the community is now live. If you've joined the community (or are yet to, click the Join Here link) you can now log in and post your own collecting story or read about others' collecting interests. You can also post up your favourite coin pic! Come and join the collecting family and have your say, you never know your contribution might sway the next coin release by the RAM.
2011 Cairns Birdwing Butterfly
The third installment of Air series coloured dollars brings this Cairns Birdwing Butterfly and the Grey-headed Flying Fox. This makes 6 coins released in the Air Series after the success of the coloured (06-07) ocean and (08-09) land series in previous years. Pad printed coloured designs leap from the frosted uncirculated coin housed in a protective blister snapped into an informative card. Another Royal Australian Mint design by Caitlin Goodall. The obverse featuring the standard effigy of QEII by Ian Rank-Broadley.
This 25mm aluminium bronze one dollar shows the vibrant colours of Australia's largest butterfly, the Cairns Birdwing Butterfly (yes, named after the city of Cairns) found in the tropical rainforests of North Queensland. Interestingly it's the unadorned female that grows to (a wingspan of) 16cm, the largest butterfly endemic to Australia but it's the male which grows smaller that exhibits the vibrant colours shown on the reverse of this coin.
Issued at $14.95, find the mintage in the 2011 mintages table. See the other issues in the Air Series.
2011 Circulation 20c IYV+10
10 years ago the world recognised 2001 as the International year of Volunteers as proclaimed by the United Nations. For the 10th anniversary in 2011 a circulation 20c coin has been released by the Royal Australian Mint. The design of the coin brings back the logo first seen on the 2001 International Year of Volunteers one dollar adding a +10 and a ring of volunteers holding hands, this design sculpted to coin by Vladimir Gottwald. The obverse design features the standard Ian Rank-Broadley effigy of Queen Elizabeth II.
Five million of these cupro-nickel 20c coin are being released into circulation with some available in Royal Australian Mint rolls. These will be the last genuine RAM rolls as the Mint are suspending their rolled coin releases. This coin has also been issued in an Australia Post PNC. Each coin weighs 11.3g, has a diameter of 28.52mm and feature continuous edge milling.
The Royal Australian Mint under leadership from CEO Mr Ross MacDiarmid is undertaking a research project through Colmar Brunton. You are invited to join the 'Your Mint Story' community to participate in short surveys, polls and research activities over the next few months to ultimately help the RAM focus more on products that suit our needs. Your participation means you'll go into the draw to win gift vouchers redeemable for Mint products, how often does the Mint giveaway money for free! Your contribution to the study will ensure future Mint products focus more on what you, the coin collector want!
To join the Your Mint Story community click the link "The Royal Australian Mint Online Community" on the right side of this page.
After the shutdown of the RAM forum and the sudden death of the aussiecoins forum, collectors were forced to find another avenue for incognito coin discussions. By default collectors turned to what was available at the time which turned out to be the www.acbo.com.au/forum. Because of the nature of the hobby of coin collecting, being able to discuss varying topics through your username is of great significance to the community. Many collectors have personal collections with significant value and staying anonymous is an important part of their own security.
The acbo forum has lacked admin attention for some time now and it's moderators have limped along with limited abilities to control potential member problems. Aside from this, member posting activities have dropped away to contributions from only maybe a few dozen members. In saying this admin has had personal health issues far outweighing the importance of forum contribution and they've decided that it's time to sell.
Both the shop and forum of the domain www.acbo.com.au are for sale by owner Steed Newson. Offers via email are being accepted. One wonders though what the value of such a domain is given other avenues which have popped up or become more focussed on by collectors with a much more active userbase. This blog for example, facebook, coin community (CCF), as well as the many specialty forums associated with pcgs, ancient coins, world coins, metal detecting and gold and silver.
Let's hope that collectors can still stay in touch to discuss their collecting either through the new owners of acbo or something similar.
*edit September 2012. It appears the ACBO forum has disappeared for good. Please visit The Australian Coin Forum.
Part 3 of the pictoral entries from the Royal Australian Mint's Unexpected Treasures exhibition is a treasure trove of errors for the delight of collectors. Wouldn't you love to have some of these errors! Sadly the errors on display all belong to the Mint's own collection but the Australian Coin Collecting Blog are proud to bring them to you thanks to Chris Zark and our Melbourne Correspondent 'SJS'.
Below is a stunning example of a very dramatic error. Visitors to the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra would have seen this coin before in the error display upstairs. Heat and pressure have welded a bolt to the coin, part of the press feeding mechanism! Now the press would have needed some dismantling to retrieve this error coin.
1992 20c Proof
When dies are mismatched in the press and that particular pair of dies were not intended to mate then you've created a Mule! These combinations are always human error or a deliberate striking. This 1991 5c proof has an Australian reverse and a New Zealand obverse.
1991 New Zealand Australia 5c Proof Mule
Sometimes a blank of the wrong type or size gets mixed into the hopper of blanks ready to be struck. If a coin is struck on a wrong size blank then the result will be a weak strike or missing design because the planchet size or the pressure of the press is set incorrectly for that size blank. Below we see a 1981 20c on a Cupro-Nickel 10c blank and a 1980 2c struck on a Cupro-Nickel 5c blank.
20c on 10c Blank (left), 2c on 5c Blank (right)
The Australian Coin Collecting Blog is proud to bring you Part 2 of the pictoral entries of error coins displayed in the "One in a Million -Unexpected Treasures from the Royal Australian Mint" exhibition. (See Part 1 here) These errors have been picked up by the Mint during production and have never before left the Mint premises. Thanks to 'SJS', our Melbourne correspondent and Chris Zark we're happy to be able to bring you some images of these stunning error coins, some worth thousands of dollars.
This 2009 Australian Citizenship C mintmark one dollar was labelled as another "bottletop" by the RAM. The reverse image (left) looks at first glance like a dished double-strike. Look more carefully though and there are 3 clear strikes! These 3 strikes were made with the coin out of collar resulting in the slightly dished pancake-like appearance of the coin. The obverse..ahh..other reverse shows a late state brockage (of many many strikes) as the image (however distorted) is reversed and incuse as it was struck repeatedly against a struck coin (in this case the die cap) and not the die itself. So, in our opinion, this coin not technically a die cap.
2009 Triple Struck with Brockage
Titled "Once Bitten" a display of 2 double clipped coins showed one struck and one blank. These types of errors easily escape the mint unnoticed. Clips are incomplete planchets arriving at the Mint in large drums from their South Korean supplier Poongsan. Have a close look at the 10c and you can see it has also been struck only partially in the collar making it a triple error coin -a double clipped broadstrike error!
The Royal Australian Mint recently showcased an exhibition of error coins in Melbourne. The display was titled "One in a Million -Unexpected Treasures from the Royal Australian Mint". Thanks to 'SJS', our Melbourne correspondent and Chris Zark we're proud to be able to bring you some images of these stunning error coins.
The Die Cap error is sometimes called a bottletop. This stunning example is of the 2000 subscription silver proof Proclamation penny.
Die Cap Error
1980 1c Die Cap
A Brockage Indent is a rare error and to have the mated pair is a one in a million!
Indented Brockage Mated Pair
Take a look at part 2 for more spectacular coin errors.
Over the next day in Melbourne a display of "whoops" coins from the Royal Australian Mint
is being shown in Federation Square. It highlights mistakes and mishaps in the minting process and also explains that some can be found in your change if you look carefully enough.
A unique collection form the Mint's own collection includes ramstrikes, misstrikes, double strikes, brockages, brockage indents, die fill, split planchets, wrong planchets, clips, cuds and die adjustment (differing pressure) strikes. The sorts of errors some of us can only dream to have in our collections.
Also displayed is a collection found in circulation by one of the countries most passionate dollar collectors. 'Goldseeker' has 'noodled' over 2.3 million aluminium bronze dollars searching for 2001 Centenary of Federation Upsets, Rabbits and the 2000 $1/10c mule. Goldy's display features a clockface of (a selection of) the degrees of upset that can be found on the 2001 COF dollar (the die rotated the entire 360 degrees), a selection of rabbit eared mob of roos dollars and a high grade mule.
2012 RAM Product Launch (image courtesy 'Goldseeker')
The Blog team weren't able to attend the recent Royal Australian Mint's 2012 product launch. A big thank you to SJS (our Melbourne correspondent) who attended the event and filed this report.
"So last night saw the Royal Australian Mint's 2012 product launch at the Atrium, Federation Square in Melbourne. On arrival I saw a friend from an online forum standing next to the first display of the One in a Million exhibition and instantly recognised his handy work in the clock face of Centenary of Federation dollar coins. This fantastic display had a number of bunny ear Roo dollars in the middle and at the very centre a lovely example of a 2000 mule.We were plied with food and drinks and RAM staff mingled among the gathered collectors and dealers. The launch itself was well done and with a number of commemorative coins coming out next year with a Melbournian theme it was clear why they chose to hold the event in Melbourne. These include a couple of coins to commemorate the 100th Men's Singles champion, which will occur at the Australian Open (the designs of this pair of coins was a little uninspiring to be honest) and the 150th anniversary of Melbourne Zoo being celebrated throughout the year with a set of pad printed coins, but this time of non-native animals.
Highlights for me include the Silver $5 convex Southern Skies coin, which for Intellectual Property reasons was only shown face on. I also think the decision to put a selectively gold plated 50c and a stunning hyper-metallic coin in the proof and uncirculated sets respectively is a fantastic idea and will reinvigorate these sets which have become a little stale of late.
Being a fan of Her Majesty (you can take the boy out of England but, you can't take the royalist out of the man) I was glad to see another 50c release to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, although this time it seems to be a single coin. The wheat sheaf dollar looked great and an appropriate follow up to this year's ram's head. Finally the Shores Under Siege three coin set, looking back at the often overlooked bombing of Australia in 1942, has some really good design work and will be making its way in to my collection.
The entire calendar can be found on the RAM website. They are also offering collectors the opportunity to pre-purchase 2012 coins through a scheme call Collection by Selection. I'm not sure how this loyalty scheme will go down with dealers, as there are some clear incentives to order your coins direct from the mint.
Also of note was information I got from a dealer that there will be no Mint to Order coin this year as the demand is not longer sufficient to justify the program. One of the reasons for this is that the mint discontinued the dealer allocation, which meant that naturally the demand dropped. I found this news disappointing from a collector's stand point but understandable from a commercial perspective. I'm also struggling to see a Masterpieces in Silver set for 2012, but there is a Mini Money Circulating Coin Designs set of Gold Proof. Clearly gold beats silver yet again.
All in all it was an interesting evening to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. Oh and the exhibition was really well done and included a lot of decimal error coins including a 1991 Proof 5c mule with an NZ obverse and some amazing bottletop silver kangaroos."
