Holey dollar: Rare Australian coin to sell for $120,000 at auction

An extremely rare Australian coin from the first batch of currency to be minted Down Under is expected to sell for $120,000.

The coin, known as a “holey dollar”, is one of only about 300 believed to be in existence, 100 of which are in museums.

It is one of few exampled held in private collections and is set to go under the hammer at a Sydney auction later this week.

Coin expert Jim Noble told Yahoo that he sold the coin to a collector in 1981 for $22,000, or about $100,000 in today’s money.

The holey dollar has a fascinating history that centres around a coin shortage in the new British colony of NSW.

In 1812, governor Lachlan Macquarie imported 40,000 Spanish reales and had convicted forger — that’s someone who produces fraudulent copies or imitations — William Henshall cut the centre out of each, to double the number of available coins.

The outer ring became the holey dollar, worth five shillings, and the centre, known as the dump, was worth 15 pence.

The coins went into circulation in 1814 and were replaced with sterling coinage in 1822.

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“Holey dollars speak eloquently of the creative and improvisatory attempts to create an orderly administration in colonial Australia,” said Andrew Sayers, director of the National Museum, which has a holey dollar in its collection.

Foreign coins were common the early years of the NSW colony, with British coins circulating alongside Dutch guilders and ducats, Indian mohurs and rupees and Portuguese johannas. Many of these coins left the colony as a result of trade with visiting merchant ships.

Australia did not get its own currency, the Australian pound, until 1910. It was replaced by the decimalised Australian dollar in 1966.

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