Australian Coins of 1966
The Changeover
On 14 February 1966 - "C-Day" - Australia replaced pounds, shillings and pence with dollars and cents, and six new coins entered circulation at once: the 1 cent, 2 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent and the round 50 cent. The Decimal Currency Act 1965 had established the Decimal Currency Board to manage the transition, and the reverse designs - the feathertail glider, frill-necked lizard, echidna, lyrebird, platypus and Commonwealth Coat of Arms - were the work of Stuart Devlin, each coin carrying the Arnold Machin effigy of Queen Elizabeth II on its obverse.
The scale of the task was unprecedented. Replacing an entire nation's coinage demanded close to a billion coins before the first day of decimal trade, more than the new Royal Australian Mint in Canberra could strike alone, so production was shared between four mints on opposite sides of the world: the Royal Mint in London, the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra, and the Royal Mint's Melbourne and Perth branches. The bronze 1 cent and 2 cent coins came from Melbourne, Perth and Canberra, the cupro-nickel 5 cent, 10 cent and 20 cent from London and Canberra, and every silver 50 cent from Canberra alone. Striking of the 1966-dated coins began as early as 1964 - Melbourne had cents on its presses before the Royal Australian Mint opened in February 1965 - and ran through 1966, producing just over a billion coins carrying the single date. In 1967 and 1968 the five smaller denominations went on being struck for commerce with dates of their own, while the silver 50 cent was not struck at all, so the round 50 cent exists with one date only: 1966.
The Circulated Coins
The table shows the mintage of the 1966-dated coins, by mint. Mintages are in millions; striking of the 1966 date ran from 1964 to 1966, so the figures cover the whole changeover supply.
| Denomination | Reverse design | Mintage (mil) | Mints |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1c | Feathertail glider | 412.1 | Canberra 146.5, Melbourne 239.0, Perth 26.6 |
| 2c | Frill-necked lizard | 429.5 | Canberra 145.2, Melbourne 66.6, Perth 217.7 |
| 5c | Echidna | 75.4 | London 30.0, Canberra 45.4 |
| 10c | Lyrebird | 41.0 | London 30.0, Canberra 11.0 |
| 20c | Platypus | 58.2 | London 30.0, Canberra 28.2 |
| 50c | Commonwealth Coat of Arms | 36.5 | Canberra only |
| These are the complete mintages of the 1966-dated coins, struck between 1964 and 1966; the coins of 1967 and 1968 carry their own dates, as described in The Quiet Years below. All 1966 coins remain legal tender; the round 50 cent, which contains silver, is worth well above face value. |
Telling the Mints Apart
No mint marks appear on any 1966 decimal coin. The Mint had not expected production to be shared, and as the Mint Controller explained in letters published in The Australian Coin Review - April 1967 for the bronze coins and August 1971 for the cupro-nickel - it was never considered necessary to mark the coins by mint, since all Australian coins were to be struck in Canberra once the changeover demand had passed.
The mints can still be told apart by die markers, however, and these give 1966 a collecting depth no later year matches. On the 1 cent, the whiskers of the feathertail glider hold the clue: Melbourne coins show the first whisker blunted, Perth coins the second, and Canberra coins neither. The 2 cent carries equivalent markers on the frill-necked lizard. For the 5 cent, 10 cent and 20 cent the London and Canberra strikes are separated only by subtle die differences, and the twenty cent page advises caution before attributing an individual coin - though the famous wavy baseline variety, the rarest circulating decimal variety, is known only from the London run of the 20 cent. The silver 50 cent, struck in Canberra alone, needs no attribution at all.
The Round Fifty Cent
The 1966 fifty cent is the odd denomination out: round, 80% silver and struck for one year only. When the silver price rose in the late 1960s the coin's bullion value passed its face value, and it vanished into hoards and melting pots - yet it was never demonetised, and its 36.5 million mintage means circulated examples remain easy to find. Its story, specifications and collecting guidance are covered in full on the round fifty cent page, and its replacement by the dodecagonal coin of 1969 on the fifty cent page.
The Quiet Years, 1967 and 1968
Once the changeover stockpile was counted and banked, production fell back to ordinary levels, and 1967 and 1968 are the quiet years of the decimal series. The five smaller denominations went on being struck for daily commerce and carry those dates normally - the bronze 1 cent and 2 cent from Melbourne and Perth respectively, the cupro-nickel 5 cent, 10 cent and 20 cent from Canberra - but the silver 50 cent vanished from the tables: the Mint's mintage record states plainly that no fifty cent coins were produced in 1967 or 1968, and its account of the coin notes that striking was suspended in March 1968 as the silver price rose above the coin's face value. Specimen pieces testing the dodecagonal replacement design were struck as early as 1966-67, but the fifty cent did not return to pockets until 1969. The 1968-dated 1 cent, struck at Melbourne, was the Royal Mint branch's final Australian coinage.
| Denomination | 1967 | 1968 |
|---|---|---|
| 1c | 110.0 (Melbourne) | 19.9 (Melbourne) |
| 2c | 73.3 (Perth) | 17.0 (Perth) |
| 5c | 62.1 (Canberra) | 67.3 (Canberra) |
| 10c | 51.0 (Canberra) | 57.2 (Canberra) |
| 20c | 83.8 (Canberra) | 40.5 (Canberra) |
| 50c | Not struck | Not struck |
| Mintages in millions. No uncirculated or proof sets were sold for either year, so choice examples of the 1967 and 1968 coins survive only from original rolls and bank bags. |
The missing collector products are what give the quiet years their bite. No sets of any kind were packaged for 1967 or 1968 - the 1966 products were still selling through - and the annual series did not resume until 1969, so an officially packaged uncirculated example of any 1967 or 1968 coin simply does not exist. Top-grade survivors come only from rolls and lucky bank bags, and the consequences are felt to this day: the 1968 1 cent, at 19.9 million the lowest mintage figure in its series, and the 1968 2 cent, at 17.0 million the second lowest in its own, are the recognised bronze key dates, while the 1968 coins of the other denominations, never sold in sets, are likewise scarce in the very best grades. Dealer-assembled "1968 sets" in retrospective packaging appear on the market from time to time and change hands at strong prices precisely because the official product never existed.
The quiet years also produced the decimal series' most celebrated bronze variety. Stuart Devlin's initials SD appear beneath the lizard's belly on the 2 cent, but on an unknown number of 1967- and 1968-dated Perth coins they are missing altogether - a die oversight flagged in The Australian Coin Review within a few years of decimalisation, and one that recurs on some 1981 coins. Collectors hunt the variety on the 1968 date, where the tiny mintage makes every survivor count: gem examples have been offered around the $500 mark, a PCGS MS64RD specimen last sold for $900, and the finest known pieces have fetched several thousand dollars.
The Uncirculated Sets
The Mint marked the first decimal year with its first uncirculated set, and 1966 is unique in appearing in five different packagings, with mintages that together account for the official total of 105,909 sets. The carded set - six coins sealed in plastic within a blue and white cardboard holder, sold at the Mint shop for $1.00 - is the version most often seen, and 67,250 of the 77,250 carded sets contain London-struck 5, 10 and 20 cent coins, with only the final 10,000 carrying Canberra-struck examples. A dark blue vinyl wallet housed 15,809 sets, and the Reserve Bank issued a further 12,260 across four colours at $1.50. Rarest are the presentation issues: 520 VIP wallets for dignitaries involved in the changeover, and just 70 green Operation Fastbuck wallets - the codename for the operation that delivered the new currency to banks across the country, with the wallets presented to the drivers who carried it out.
| Variety | Packaging | Mintage |
|---|---|---|
| Carded set | Blue and white cardboard holder, $1.00 | 77,250 |
| Dark blue wallet | Dark blue vinyl wallet | 15,809 |
| Reserve Bank wallets | Red, blue, green and black vinyl wallets, $1.50 | 12,260 |
| VIP presentation wallet | Presentation wallet | 520 |
| Operation Fastbuck wallet | Green vinyl wallet | 70 |
| Total | 105,909 |
The Proof Set
The 1966 proof set was a product of patience. The Mint's first priority was circulating coin, and it was July 1967 before proof equipment was tested and the first decimal proof coins could be struck - still dated 1966 even as the circulating coinage moved on to 1967 and 1968 dates, the Mint Controller confirming that the sets would carry the changeover year regardless of when they were made. Each blank was individually edge-marked, buffed on linen wheels and ultrasonically cleaned before being double-struck, and the finished coins were sprayed to guard against tarnishing.
The sets went on sale in October 1967 at $12.50 each, an initial limit of five sets per order, and production continued into early 1969 for a final total of 18,054 sets. The six proof coins are housed in velvet and satin-lined blue cases of two types, light blue and dark blue, and the unsealed cases left the coins easy to mishandle: fingerprints, spots and toning from the blue felt affect most surviving sets, so pristine examples carry a strong premium. No further proof sets were issued until 1969, when the series resumed with the new dodecagonal fifty cent in sonically sealed packaging.
Gallery
| File:Australian 1966 circulated coins.jpg | 
|
The six coins of the changeover, and the silver round 50 cent that lasted a single year. |
| File:196620cnormal.jpg | File:196620cwavy.jpg | The 20 cent of 1966 - normal, and with the wavy baseline of the rare London variety. |
| File:Australian 1968 2c with SD.jpg | File:Australian 1968 2c no SD.jpg | The key 1968 two cent, with the designer's initials SD beneath the lizard - and without them, the famous no-SD variety. |
| File:Australian UNC Set 1966 card packaging.jpg | File:Australian UNC Set 1966 card coins.jpg | The carded uncirculated set, mintage 77,250. |
| File:Australian UNC Set 1966 wallet packaging.jpg | File:Australian UNC Set 1966 RBA packaging.jpg | The dark blue wallet issue (15,809) and a Reserve Bank wallet (12,260 across four colours). |
| File:Australian UNC Set 1966 VIP packaging.jpg | File:Australian UNC Set 1966 Fastbuck packaging.jpg | The VIP presentation wallet (520) and the Operation Fastbuck wallet (70). |
| File:Australian 1966 proof set case.jpg | File:Australian 1966 proof coins.jpg | The proof set in its blue case, and the six double-struck proof coins. 18,054 sets, sold from October 1967. |
