Posted 02/04/2008 05:14 am
The Holey Dollars and Dumps circulated for less than twenty years. In the mid-1820's, large quantities of British coinage arrived to help finance the economy of New South Wales, and in 1826 the British parliament demonetised the Holey Dollars and Dumps, declaring sterling currency sole legal tender in the colony.
Of course, silver was silver, and a shopkeeper would have been a fool to knock back a Spanish dollar (or even a holey dollar) if offered in payment, but it wouldn't have been common, and would've been accepted only at a discount, or for bullion value only, because of the difficulty in exchanging it for sterling. Portuguese and other foreign coins would have been even scarcer.
Part of the reason why foreign coinage in trade was scarcer here than in, say, the US, was our isolation. Australia wasn't on the way to or from anywhere - you had to go out of your way to arrive here. And we were a long way away from everywhere, especially the sources of any of the usual trade coins (e.g. Mexico, Peru, India). The attitude seems to have been that if we were going to import coins from the far side of the planet, they may as well be good British ones.
When the gold rushes of the 1850's suddenly swelled the population, we again ran out of money, especially the small change (we were making our own gold coins by then). The tradesman's token series, rather than foreign coins, filled the gap until more British coins could be shipped over. Pre-1910 British coins found here are often in very worn condition, due to the difficulty involved in replacing them; none of the Australian branches of The Royal Mint were fitted out to make anything other than gold coins.
British and Australian coins circulated side-by-side here until 1920, when the Australian pound was formally decoupled from the British pound. This was the same time that British silver coins were debased from .925 to .500 fine, while Australian ones remained at .925 fine. After this time, only Australian coins were legal tender here; British coins found in circulation were withdrawn and shipped back to Britain.
Of course, silver was silver, and a shopkeeper would have been a fool to knock back a Spanish dollar (or even a holey dollar) if offered in payment, but it wouldn't have been common, and would've been accepted only at a discount, or for bullion value only, because of the difficulty in exchanging it for sterling. Portuguese and other foreign coins would have been even scarcer.
Part of the reason why foreign coinage in trade was scarcer here than in, say, the US, was our isolation. Australia wasn't on the way to or from anywhere - you had to go out of your way to arrive here. And we were a long way away from everywhere, especially the sources of any of the usual trade coins (e.g. Mexico, Peru, India). The attitude seems to have been that if we were going to import coins from the far side of the planet, they may as well be good British ones.
When the gold rushes of the 1850's suddenly swelled the population, we again ran out of money, especially the small change (we were making our own gold coins by then). The tradesman's token series, rather than foreign coins, filled the gap until more British coins could be shipped over. Pre-1910 British coins found here are often in very worn condition, due to the difficulty involved in replacing them; none of the Australian branches of The Royal Mint were fitted out to make anything other than gold coins.
British and Australian coins circulated side-by-side here until 1920, when the Australian pound was formally decoupled from the British pound. This was the same time that British silver coins were debased from .925 to .500 fine, while Australian ones remained at .925 fine. After this time, only Australian coins were legal tender here; British coins found in circulation were withdrawn and shipped back to Britain.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
