Coin and banknote collectors have been manic for the new design next generation $5 notes. First and Last prefix 2015 notes of the old design have also surfaced when we all thought 2013 might be the last year of issue. It’s not just crazy in the banknote collecting world there are more new coins on the horizon too.

The Royal Australian Mint (RAM) has been slow sending out orders of late and customers have been getting surprise goodies as an apology for slow delivery in their packages when they do arrive. Selling the 50th anniversary of decimal currency commemorative circulation coins has been both a win and a pain for the RAM with many orders placed owing to the “one bag per order” rule which has been tireless and frustrating for collectors.The 160 years of Holden Heritage commemorative coins have been another hugely popular issue with the special non-coloured bonus coin a massive win with sale prices for this set booming. The Queen’s 90th birthday made to order 3 coin set had collectors smiling earlier this year when a mintage of 9,108 was announced. That smile quickly turned sour when each of these coins turned up in an Australia Post PNC and more recently a prestige 3 coin PNC making the mintage for these coins much higher than anticipated.

Looking ahead the most recent currency determination tells us what is likely coming our way soon and for the new year. We’re looking forward to a number of coins depicting military awards. 20 cent denominations will feature the Star of Gallantry, Distinguished Service Cross, Nursing Service Cross, Military Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Victory Medal, 1939-1945 Star Military Award, Australian Active Service Medal, OSM Australian Operational Service Medal -Greater Middle East Operation Military Award and Australian Defence Medal.

25 cent coins, the first Australian coins struck in magnetic copper plated steel will feature the Victoria Cross, George Cross, Distinguished Flying Cross and Medal for Gallantry. Of course we may be wrong about these coins being magnetic because the RAM annual report for 2015-16 suggests that our newest circulating coins in copper-nickel have been made in nickel plated steel which, if correct is of massive importance to the tiny population who care! It’s likely that’s just a very awkward typo for the Mint. (Now who’s gone to get a magnet and are checking the new coins in their wallet?)

We’ll soon be seeing the release of next years coin sets and we’re perhaps looking at the 2017 mint set coins featuring each of the planets of the solar system including the 1 cent and 2 cent -now that sounds cool!

2017 marks the centenary of the completion of the Trans-Australian rail line linking Western Australia to the eastern states. This 1693 kilometre stretch of rail line was completed on October 17th 1917. It took 2.5 million hardwood sleepers and 140,000 tonnes of rail line to complete and is a fitting theme for the mintmark commemorative dollar for 2017. The coin is designed by Tony Dean and will feature the various mintmarks, counterstamps (including an Australia counterstamp) and privymarks produced throughout the year as well as the gallery press at the Mint in Canberra.

For all the crystal ball gazing it won’t be long before it’s Remembrance Day and the Mint looks to be issuing another coloured commemorative $2 coin in the Lest We Forget theme. This time similar to the Paralympic coin in that it will be multi-coloured yellow, green, blue and indigo. We can’t wait!

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.