1980 Gold Coin

The coin of which you speak generally sells for around gold spot price.

By the way, a Koala is not a bear. They are a marsupial. Sorry for being picky.

I've lived in semi-bushland for 45 years and I've never seen one. They are very fussy what they eat and where they live. The rate at which bushland is being cleared in Australia, I probably will never see one in the wild in my lifetime.

G'day,
Learjet, within their range, koalas are plentiful, but non-existent elsewhere.
I've been to two sanctuaries: both worth the time, trouble, and money. One was near Penrith, in the suburbs of Sydney; the other was at Lone Pine, a few kilometres from the centre of Brisbane.
Recently, the population in South Australia, particularly on Kangaroo Island, has "exploded", and there was talk of a "cull".
My friends in the Adelaide Hills see them every day.
I have a friend near Toowoomba reports seeing them every week.
In Victoria, I have seen them at -
Monash University (a large tribe there: very active in late afternoon);
Hanging Rock (went there for a picnic; has anyone seen Miranda lately ?); and
Phillip Island is thick with them (take a quinella on them and the fairy penguins).
I'm in Darwin now: none up here.

Back to the coins: the $200 koalas were non-circulating legal tender. I'm not sure, but I think I recall reading that they were made at the Perth Mint.

Peter

I was under the (probably mistaken) impression these were minted in Canberra. Is that possible? Now I've got something else to look up.

Round here, lots of Blue Tongues, few koala's... Not far from here though, if you look hard enough you can find koala's in the wild...

quote:

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...Kind of a shame, that they are likely to just end up going back to the mint to be melted down...

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Yep, that's exactly what happens to NCLT that's deposited at the bank for face value, unless someone at the bank either reissues them for face value to a customer who asks for them (that's why I've included "banks" in my list of places to get coins from cheaply, in this thread) or the tellers decide to receive part of their pay "in kind" and buy them themselves.

The same thing happens when people "deposit" some sovereigns. Their accounts get credited $2 for a sovereign ($1 for a half-sov) and the coins would go back to the mint for melting and reissue as new collector coins.

Here in this country, the banks themselves aren't allowed to sell such "windfall" coins for a profit. I understand, from posts made on-forum by bank employees, that the banks even prefer it when someone else comes in and takes deposited NCLT off their hands for face value... there's less paperwork for them that way.

It doesn't hurt to ask (the worst they can do is say "no"), but it will certainly make them friendlier if you're an account-holder with them.

With bullion prices where they are now, don't expect to find too many people depositing precious metal coins these days. Bank findings were better a few years ago, when their bullion value was near or even below face value. At the nadir of gold prices in 1999-2000, even the coin dealers were sending people with $200 coins to the banks, and offloading their unwanted coins there.

Yass,

What has been your success rate in finds at the banks? Do you get much positive response when you go in?