Predecimal removal from circulation

[mkonst]

Hi all,
So my questions are on the change over of currency. I've tried to find this info but couldn't find it easily.

1) how was predecimal currency removed from circulation?
2) what happened to the coins removed from circulation?
3) how many coins stayed in hands of collectors? 10-20%?

Thanks in advance
Michael

[Basil]

I read an article on this very thing during my travels on the Internet,i just did a Google but it didn't show,may have been a Dealers website.
1..thru the Banks same as Mutes are, then transported to the Commonwealth & then Reserve Bank.
2..melted,Silver went into the 1966 50c,i think it was driven by John Gorton(PM Holt was taking advice from a sub-committee of some kind) against Treasury warnings.
3..10-20% is as good estimate but who knows.Back in the early 1960's nearly every suburb had a Coin/Stamp dealer and they sorted huge volumes of coins when the decision by the Govt. to convert to decimal currency leaked out,also the average Joe started collecting when the major city Newspapers started listing all the scarce Coins around 1963/64 in the leadup to 1966 changeover.

My Sister had a job with the ANZ Bank in the early 1960's,in those days you worked Sat. Mornings,once the official Govt. announcement was made the Branch Manager let Staff(who wished too) sort unrolled Coins on the Sat. afternoon to try & find scarce dates.Highly unregular but it made for a very happy working enviroment.

I'll try & find the article i read as my memory is not 100%.
This isn't it but shows a murky history of the 50 pattern.
http://www.cruzis-coins.com/Grading/1966.html

[kchan1111]

The Currency Museum on ground floor of the RBA in Martin Place Sydney has a display on how decimal coinage was introduced.

[autocoupler]

I remember reading quite recently that large amounts of pre decimal silver was removed from circulation and used as payment of war debt to the USA. Can't honestly say where it was I read that, but I remember old currency still circulating into the 70's.

[Basil]

I remember reading quite recently that large amounts of pre decimal silver was removed from circulation and used as payment of war debt to the USA. Can't honestly say where it was I read that, but I remember old currency still circulating into the 70's.

Yeah,1946 when Silver content was reduced from 92.5% to 50%,info. is all on the Net. but the links are on my old computer and not showing(the one i want) on Google at the moment.Reseachers say the Commonwealth Bank was withdrawing all pre-1945 Shillings/Florins for melt shortly after the war ended,apparently it wasn't well known outside Banking & Numismatic circles at the time.

[Mister T]

I might be remembering wrong but there's probably total numbers melted in some early Australian Coin Reviews. Might have to do some digging...

[Goldseeker]

To the best of my knowledge the following happened:

1.   On changeover day, one handed over the old outgoing currency and received new coins/currency as change.

2.   Banks did the same, received deposits of old currency, and if a withdrawal was made, then now coins/currency were issued.   The banks then separated old from new and returned the old currency back through the then Reserve Bank via the security delivery vans etc.   If one was smart and had some spare cash on them, then one could buy the old coins at face value from the bank and sell the silver coins at a great profit.    But one would have to be in cahoots with the banks staff.   I know of a father and son combination that used to do just that and go into banks and buy only silver coins.   Load up the boot and trailer and take the coins home and sort into pre and post 46 and on sell the coins to scrap metal merchants or have the coins reefing to recover the silver.   They made thousands of dollars.   If only I had known.    It is like the hoarding of the 199 50c piece.   Facve value of the coin ion release date was 50c, but, silver content in the coin was equal $0.63 cents per coin.   Bingo, instant profit and it still is today if you get 66 50c pieces at face value of a little less that market price of silver.

3.The once removed from circulation were eventually returned to the mint for meltdown, especially the copper coins as they were used to mint the 1 and 2 cent pieces.   The old RAM had it own furnace for melting coins and scrap metals but they disposed of that years ago.

4.   How m any coins remained in the hands of collectors.   That is hard to say today as many coin dealers see many loads of pre decimal coins coming into their shop every day.    I have a full collection of circulating Pre decimal coins at home now and I have another 10 ks of pre decimal silver and copper as well.   What percentage is still being kept, is anyone's guess.   I would say anything up to 40% of all coins issued are still in the public hands and that includes coins held by dealers.

[autocoupler]

Resurrected this thread as it has relevance. Over the years I've never been one to buy hoards of bulk pre decimal coins, preferring instead to cherry pick higher grades from the internet, dealers stock books and at coins shows etc.

My main quest concentrated on the many 1922 Penny varieties that exist, and up until about four years ago some of the scarcer types could be found in higher grade reasonably regularly, even those I considered rare were turning up in lower grade albeit far less frequently.

Remembering the 1922 penny would generally be considered very common, these days the coins on my radar are far less prevalent in higher grade, and the rarer examples have just about dried up to the point of being nonexistent.

My question is, is this because the numbers in the pond have reduced dramatically, or are higher graded coins in general being withheld by sellers.  TIA

[serial]

According to Australia coins, notes and medals by Bill Myatt & Tom Hanley, Published 1982 page 100
"Total amount of bronze and silver coins issued between 1910 and 1966 was $139,717,596 .By 1977, $110,552,280 worth of coins had been withdrawn for remelting"
Now these are official reserve bank figures of coins they themselves have withdrawn and disposed of, it doesn't take into account the many thousands of dollars that have been privately smelted

[markn]

PPH wrote a blog article about it last month:

http://www.australian-coins.com/australian-decimal-changeover/happened-pre-decimal-coins-australia-changed-decimal-currency/

[serial]

Yes but it didn't have any specific idea as to what has been removed, it took me a while to find the information I have. What we do know is that in 1977 the reserve bank had removed 79% of all coins minted from circulation. I would say that at least half of the remaining has been melted down/lost or destroyed which means only 10% would be left

[trout]

I would say that a survival rate of 10% is pretty optimistic, that's about 7 million quids worth of coins.
I am thinking that the silver hikes since decimalization would have seen a big chunk of the silver coins melted down for scrap and I would love to know how many tonnes of pennys and halfpennys have been sold to scrap dealers.
It would take 10,000 collectors with 100 quids worth of predecimals to make just a million.

[Basilstate]

Close as i could come to a relevant thread,huge volume of pre-dec copper listed on Ebay,one link but check out his other listings,selling by the kilo.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/224550176575?hash=item34483bc73f:g:WbsAAOSwGpJhAPU9

[fred lever]

My gut reaction is the coins will be as "unsorted" as my backside!
No trader worth his salt would sell any pennies without culling out all the 1930, 1946,1925 dates for a start.
The chances of that not happening by anybody that has handled the coins in the last 60 years is MINISCULE.

I have sampled "unsorted" job lots every now and then over the decades and noted the diminishing level of scarce dates and obvious error/varieties.
The stats dwindled  from lots of die cracks, miss-strikes and the occasional scarcer 1920, 1925,1946 down to ZIPPO.

Sooner or later I figured sellers with buckets of crap dross coins will either just sell them for scrap, or, dress them up with a hint of maybe rareness and try again.
Oh look.......... the guy has "unsorted" pennies...HAH!
Fred.

[JeffH]

I too am rather cynical about the "unsorted" claim. Even if the seller has not personally sorted them, how many other people have checked through them before they end up with him?