Australian And New Zealand Coins, How Far Back Can We Go - First Edition

1984

NZ 20 cent.


Aus One Cent


Aus 10 cents


Aus 20 cents


Aus One Dollar


I heard that the demise of the 20 cent coin in this era
was due the end of the Space Invader craze. In early 1980s, every pizza store (and others) had a couple of Space Invader machines, but then the bubble burst and we didn't need all those 20c coins any more.

Steve :)

Had to look that one up. Never heard peppercorn used in that meaning. Another new word for my brains lexicon! Thanks PT.

David I may have used peppercorn out of context. I meant it for the coins being of a very low and impractical mintage (Like 1.5 million 20 cent coins, when there are like 200 million of them floating around).

I saw the word peppercorn used to describe a trivial amount of rent or sum paid for something worth a lot more (Like in the 80s, my mother was a Prison officer and we lived in the Prison village, as the Prison was a long way out of the city and the rent of the house was $5 a week, when a rented home should have cost $200 or so).

Also for something daft like buying a company worth millions but with kabillions worth of debt and obligations for $1.

Sometimes I need to find the word and I can not.

Regular coins for Australia, I have them all





1983 saw all of the denominations issued except the 20 cents, several million were minted, but re melted, as Steve said this was likely to the spacies market tanking a bit.

Spacies were video game machines that were free standing and played in takeaway food bars and arcades. Named after the 1978 game Space Invaders, they exploded in the late 70s and early 80s and skilled players could make 20 cents last hours. Sadly 2 things ruined their momentum.

1. The growth of the Home video game system market led by Atari in the early 1980s, even a dreadful ET release in late 1982 could not kill the momentum much. It led to a collapse with Atari, but Japanese companies Nintendo and Sega took over followed later by Playstations and X boxes.

2. Moral panics, as the arcades were seen as dark and unhygenic, streetkids and drug addicts gathered there and in NZ they attracted gang members looking for prospects. Video games attracted an "undesirable element" namely read working class and Maori children who were the target of stereotyping by a rabid and racist media. Movements in the later 80s saw the image cleaned up and the issue was forgotten when pokies invaded these arcades in the later 80s.

My coins here are all in good condition too (Figure of speech meaning AU/UNC rather than the heavily worn Good condition)

Finally 1983 gave us 2 large dollars. Both are quite interesting.



50th anniversary of coinage and Royal Visit of Charles and Di


37 years in a plastic holder seems to have "browned" these coins slightly.

The coinage dollar is a nice design and was revisited in 1992 with a similar design, the coins are showing a mix of Predecimals and Decimal designs. The coat of arms from 1953 is also present. This dollar was the standard coin issued with the sets.

The Royal Visit dollar shows a good portrait of Charles and Di and is from their visit in April 1983.

Both coins are common with mintages of 40k each in this state and 17k as silver proofs.

Here is a silver proof of the Royal visit one

1983 New Zealand 20 cents and Royal Visit dollar:

Great photo.

Once we hit the 70s, I will only show selected coins of each year, not all of them - just takes too long and photo quality suffers.

However the big years like 1965 and 1966 I will show a lot more.

Beauty Steve.

My 1982 is complete, but to be honest what a boring year for both countries and in fact back to 1980.





NZ everything was issued and apart from the 1 cent in large numbers, particularly the 20 cent piece

1982's dollar celebrated the Takahe - one of our famous flightless birds thought extinct until "discovered" in an isolated Firodland Valley in 1948. In the flesh these birds are huge (Like 2 feet high and Dodo like). Like most of our threatened birds, the Takahe is completely flightless.




This stunning portrait of her Majesty graces all the dollar coins back to 1979, one of the last things designed by James Berry (1906 - 1979) before he died.

James Berry designed the obverses to the 1967 coins (So not the Pukaki 20 cents or either of the $1 or $2 small coins) and the original obverse to the $1 coin (Coat of arms) and also numerous stamp issues in New Zealand.