Coins That Resemble Australian Coins

I remember maybe 12 years ago you could get a gumball. Probably that long ago a McDonalds cone still cost 30c too.

The list of coins covered by these criteria would be slightly different, then. The only ones remaining would be New Zealand, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Cook Islands and Tuvalu. New additions would be some of the now-obsolete "British and colonial" coins I mentioned earlier, specifically the 5p and 10p coins. I think we'd add Britain itself, as well as the following territories: Isle of Man, Jersey, Gibraltar, St Helena & Ascension and Falkland Islands. And just for completeness, there's the old colonial-transition coinage from Rhodesia. If you also include the old Gillick portrait of the Queen (as seen on Australian predecimal coins), then a few more obsolete predecimal coinages such as South Africa and Nigeria could be added, but since that portrait would also stand out like a sore thumb if given in change in Australia today, I won't include them.

Some coins of Guernsey have the Queen's portrait but the layout of the obverse is sufficiently different to be noticeable at first glance. Likewise the interim coinage for Gambia, the only circulating coins to bear the Queen's portrait but not her name, is quite distinctive. There are also coins from other dominions and territories, like the Canadian 25 cents, that are similar to, but not quite the same as, an Australian coin in size and could be substituted by the inattentive.

I should point out that all of the coins mentioned here have been replaced by coins that are smaller, with the exception of the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. Tuvalu hasn't issued coins this millenium, so we don't know what their next circulation coins would be like. So in that sense, the Solomons are the "only" country where you can go to today and still find coinage more or less identical to Australia's. Both of these countries still technically circulate their 1c and 2c coins, too.

Back to the OP, just about everything from countries connected to England was somewhat similar.

I have florins from Australia,New Zealand,South africa and Of course the UK.
They are all the same size.
they are either Stirling silver or 50% silver, Depends on when they were debased.
The sixpence,threepence and the shilling are the same way.
I wonder if all these countries got their planchets from the same place.
Anyway they are all great looking and feeling coins.

I read somewhere a while ago that "Australia has some of the largest coins in the world" in relation to their size, weight, and thickness by comparison to the standard coinage of many other countries. Particularly now that virtually all of the African, Asian, and now most of the Pacific colonies have abandoned the ancient silver weight sizes for smaller, cheaper, "ergonomic" coins. Australia is almost the only country left I can think of off the bat that still uses the florin, shilling, etc. sizes. It can be hard to let go of something so many people grew up around and became accustomed to. My country keeps attempting to do away with the penny as well as occasional talk of doing away with the nickel or downsizing it but so far there's been little movement.

It's important to note that many coins of other countries that have similar size and weight to Australian coins are often minted in Australia.

Once upon a time, a few cents were worth a little something. The Aussie is currently one of the more higher valued currencies these days, especially compared to the rates of the eighties. But then...part of its high exchange may only be because the US dollar has lost a tremendous amount of value in the last ten years relative to other currencies. I still wonder if an eventual change in the change is imminent.

Fiji changed recently to new, steel cored coins; similar to New Zealand but all nickel coated. 5¢ is same size and design as previous but edge is plain (not milled). 10¢, 20¢ and 50¢ are similar design to previous but smaller (50¢ is now circular but has 12 sided shape within the rim).
1¢ and 2¢ were scrapped at changeover.
Good business for Canadian mint -they have the patent on the process. I have an idea PNG is (maybe has) going the same way.

The change was well advertised and, as soon as the new coins were available, the public was given 3 months to return old coins to banks before they were not to be used any more!

$1 coin unchanged so far. I believe it will be changed soon and, probably $2 coin introduced and $2 note withdrawn.

Also, Queen's head is soon to be replaced by native flora and/or fauna. I am not sure exactly when and if it is both coins and notes -Government press releases were not fully informative.

Jeff
PS. I was in Fiji recently and will be back again soon. Reserve bank is advertising some attractive deals (at least, I think they are) for uncut note sheets. If anyone is interested I will be in Suva and can purchase some.
PPS. I found a NZ 50¢ recently in a change bag of AU50¢. Hard to confuse because different shapes! I guess you could confuse it with a 1966 50¢ (but last time I saw one of those from circulation here was about 3 to 4 years ago).

I love large coins, even if they are worthless. If australia ever shrinks their coins I think I'll throw a fit.