1933 was the very first year of New Zealand coinage. The proposal was floated in June that year due to the Kiwi pound being devalued 25% in two steps by early 1931.
Even though we used British coins, people could catch boats to Australia and get 10% extra in foreign exchange and as much as 25% more in the UK. This led to serious coin smuggling and the Halfcrown was the coin of choice.
Stories of gas canisters and hat boxes with solid compartments full of smuggled coins abound, one man who gathered £990 worth of halfcrowns here, sold them for £1200 in UK and made £100 after expenses were deducted spurred the government to action.
In many cases, ship stewards aided and abetted smugglers as they were offered a few % extra for carrying bags of silver on them and given it was the depression with low wages - the premise of earning a few extra bob for no real effort was appealing. On smuggler had 10 stewards each with £50 of coins to declare. Each got £1 for their troubles!
The Halfcrowns came first being released in November and the other coins slipped out between Feb and June 1934.
All British and Australian coins became invalid in a years time and the smuggling of more than £2 coins a jailable offense and as Kiwi coins arrived, British ones became invalid and only copper remained legal. Given the low face value of copper - no one would bother smuggling large quantities out of the country.
In all 15.1 million coins were released with 1933 dates. This was complimented by 18.5 million more in 1934.
All the coins of 1933 are very common and mine are all average however the Halfcrown, Shilling and Threepence are aFine to Fine and the Florin and Sixpence are gVG.
Dorado - your Halfcrown is a nice fine, but your shilling is about as worn as they get - aGood to Good. Thanks for showing them though
Sorry for the blabby post - but this will be the last Kiwi coins until the 1800s.
As of tomorrow, it will be British coins as my main thrust.
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Posted 04/15/2020 12:49 am
