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

Lovely coins, Princetane!

My NZ coins for 1934:





The threepence is in the best condition, but the shilling deserves a special mention as it is the only silver coin I ever personally got in change in New Zealand! It was January 1974 in Napier, and I'd probably bought a milkshake or a souvenir of some kind.

Finally 1934 was the year our Reserve bank was formed and they started issuing banknotes from a centralised source. Previously several banks issued notes and thus there were 8 or 9 types of every value from 10/- up to £100!




A set of trading bank banknotes from the 1920s 10/- to £100
,taken at the Reserve bank museum in Wellington


1934 set of four notes at the Museum.

The first series was 10/-, £1, £5 and £50. The highest and lowest values were similar in colour and all notes the same size, hence confusion happened and several stories of people paying £50 as 10/- exist.




A very rare Lefeaux £50 note ($12k in real life) this again is at the Reserve Bank Museum in Wellington and open to public, it is NOT mine!

In 1940, they updated it with a newer series that had a browner and much smaller 10 bob and redder and larger 50 quid, a 10 quid was added to the line up. Apart from some signature and minor changes, this series lasted until 1967

Some of the old £1 notes were overprinted and sent to Fiji in WW2 designed to help a shortage and also made worthless if the Japs invaded Fiji.




Complete set of 1940 - 1967 notes (Series 2).

Only? Those are stunners!

Rob I love how many of your coins have stories attached, its very heartwarming and makes them seem so much more precious.
That 3d of yours is easily VF and a nice piece and even all your other Kiwi stuff is more VG - Fine rather than Good - its all nice clean and honest stuff!

Different to me, it will be - Oh I bought it in my mid 40s when I got obsessed with coins again and again off Trade Me or some internet thang (How quaint and medieval!) . Yes this 16th century halfcrown came to me in that far off summer of 2023.

Steve, I guess I can keep an eye on my letterbox then - meanwhile I have a few coins already set aside for you (Some are very recent and straight from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand!)

Sorry If I am showing off with my Kiwi - its really my main forte after Halfcrowns and Florins. I have a vested interest in collecting the best examples I can and just love to show their beauty off.

The Australian coins are much more typical of most of my numismatic holdings

First (Last) year of New Zealand coins:

Sorry I am late tonight, still reeeling from a dinner out and the news of YET another LOCKDOWN because of some cretins who had Covid 19 going out working, partying and eating burgers and visiting vape shops. Yet our namby pamby government won't arrest them or anything.

Anyway 1933 was the first year of New Zealand coinage and also the last here as we head backwards. It is a misnomer, the coins were only planned in mid 1933 after Depression Pound devaluations led to a rise in coin smuggling through 1931, 1932 and into 1933. Because you could get more for your money when going to Australia and Britain (And we had British currency at the time). People did crazy stuff like smuggle coins in gas cannisters, hatboxes, suitcases and even frozen ducks . Mostly it was British Halfcrowns as each pound taken to Australia got a 2/6 premium and 5/- to UK. In the Depression this was a nice money earner.

Some people smuggled as much as £1000 in Halfcrowns and then in early 1933, they were banned and Australian Florins were used. It sounds funny, but NZ relied on coin shipments from Britain and coins were ALWAYS in short supply here, having cretins smuggle them out of the country made matters worse, just like teenage hoodlums antics at KFC and a vape shop putting a 1.5 million person city into lockdown.

The government imposed limits of £10 and then £5 per head in coins, but these were badly enforced like Covid 19 testing rules in South Auckland.

The solution was our own coinage and designing took place between Aug and Oct 1933, with the new coins being minted in London. All designs were by Kruger Grey - hot off his success with designing a series for Southern Rhodesia the year before.

The best part of new coins meant that the smuggling of coins in frozen chickens and pieces of cardboard that looked like Connect 4 playing boards would end.


Coming soon to a frozen duck near you!

As the preference for smuggling big coins was all the rage, the halfcrowns arrived first in November 1933, followed by the 6d in Jan 34 and the rest up to May 1934. 1934 dated coins arrived only in August of 1934.

On June 30th 1934, all British and Australian silver coins were phased out and by June 30th 1935 were declared no longer legally tender.

My Australia for 33 is limited, but 2 of these coins are quite rare (The condition is not that great though).




A nice penny (VFish), the rare 1933 shilling (VG/aVG) and a 1933 Florin (G - VG), a key date - but would be more key if its was a year older. I dropped some dollars on these, but they will do in the meantime. I was lucky and only paid about $50 for the Florin and the shilling came in the instant collection. I would estimate its value around $100 in that condition.



Bit of blur, but perfectly fine.

Starting tomorrow, things are getting real bitsy around here, I mean 1 or 2 coins most days!