Hamilton Island Tokens

Again, I'm from Queensland and have been to Hamilton Island several times in my younger days, and I have a friend whose daughter works on the island. But once again, I am not familiar with these tokens.

Hamilton Island is unique among Queensland's island resorts in marketing itself as a comfortable tropical holiday destination for sun-deprived tourists from southern states. It is the most heavily developed island in the Whitsundays, with multiple high-rise unit blocks and has an airport with a runway big enough to take the larger passenger jets (this runway can be clearly seen on the map of the island seen on the back of these tokens); there are daily direct flights from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. In response to this predominance of southern tourists, Hamilton Island is the only piece of Queensland that recognizes Daylight Savings Time, changing clocks to "Island Time" to allow their clocks to remain in sync with the southern states. This, ultimately, is the origin of the "a world of its own" slogan, in use from 1989 to 2003. The slogan was also used on the island's unique number plates which adorned the golf carts that are the main vehicular transportation on the island from 1989 to 2003.

That angel-fish logo was the symbol used for Hamilton Island from 1989 to 1998, which gives a most-probable time-window for the issue of these tokens.

I suspect that the deliberate mis-spelling "dollas" instead of "dollars" is to avoid running afoul of Australian laws prohibiting the private issue of tokens denominated in "dollars".

I notice both of these tokens are similarly holed. This hole makes me think that, if not originally intended as such, the tokens were later re-purposed and sold as keytags, such as was the fate of the Sea World (Gold Coast) "one dolphin" tokens.

Perhaps the most famous "island tokens" in Australia are for the Cocos/Keeling islands. The original tokens, dated 1913 and made of plastic, are expensive and highly sought after by collectors both in Australia and worldwide; a second series of plastic tokens was made in 1968, followed by metal tokens in later years.

There was a series of several dozen "tourist dollars" put out by the Stokes private mint in the early to mid 1980s from places all over Australia. One such is from Norfolk Island: https://en.numista.com/301421. Norfolk Island never issued its own legal tender coinage (though it did issue its own postage stamps) but did have its own dedicated 20 cent and 50 cent coins in 2001 as part of the Federation "states and territories of Australia" series: https://en.numista.com/12504 and https://en.numista.com/12594

There's also a Stokes tourist dollar for Phillip Island, near Melbourne: https://www.bobshop.co.za/australia...5tzgXZ1NqPDA

Smaller "tourist coins" have been made and sold in more recent years, with all sorts of tourist destinations on them, including some islands. Rottnest Island in Western Australia, for example: https://en.numista.com/31111 And here's one from Kangaroo Island, South Australia: https://en.numista.com/308767

And while perhaps not quite directly of interest to you, the tourist dollar they made for the city of Mackay mentions the Brampton Island cruises, which departed from that city: https://www.bobshop.co.za/large-48m...CB93v-FUfEqI Likewise, the Townsville tourist dollar has a map of Magnetic Island on it : https://en.numista.com/299142

Thanks for your comments! I'm so glad you're getting your bearings. I hope you enjoy both research and puzzles. I've collected several additional puzzles about the numismatics of these islands. For example, here's one: how can I explain and where can I find information about the 1963 "interim" token for these islands?
Who knows what this token is? :



P.S. Another numismatic mystery concerns countermarks on silver coins associated with one of the islands in this group in 1914—North Keeling Island. If you're interested, we can create a separate thread about the Cocos Islands.

My father once worked for Daikyo who, at the time, owned a bunch of hotels as well as Green Island Resort. From memory he once mentioned "Daikyo Dollars" which was a trade currency produced for Green Island. I don't know if the currency was metal or paper. Daikyo Dollars could only be spent on Green Island and were purchased using hard currency. Many visitors would deliberately keep them as souvenirs or forget to cash them in when they left the island. I think, like on cruise ships, there was a slight discount if you purchased your food and drink in Daikyo Dollars or it may be that you could only purchase items using Daikyo dollars. At the end of the day it was just a way for the company to gain more $$$. Bear in mind that this was in Japan's economic heyday when a lot of wealthy Japanese tourists were visiting Australia. Daikyo did exclusive golf tours etc which were all booked and payed for in Japan including meals etc and so it's possible the tourists bought Daikyo Dollars in Japan. I've never seen a Daikyo Dollar but I'm guessing most ended up back in Japan. My guess is that the Hamilton tokens are of a similar concept, with the hole present to encourage tourists to keep them rather than spend them.