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Posted 01/13/2006 8:08 pm
quote:
Originally posted by Bigfella
There is an interesting story as to how the USA did a deal with us Aussies to mint coins for us. Other Aussies may like to fill in the blanks here.
To put is simply we ran out of silver and man power to make coins during the war. We asked the good old USA to do us Aussies a favour which in your generosity you obliged. You supplied the manpower...the presses and the silver. The only way we could pay you back was to melt down our sterling silver coins and remake then at 50% silver and send to you the left over silver to pay our debt.
The arrival of US servicemen in Australia in 1942 (Over-sexed, over-paid and over-here) literaly caused us to run out of money. The Melbourne and Perth Mints could not cope and The Royal Mint was split up around a few locations in London because of the Blitz.
So under the "Lend-Lease" arrangments we bought "some 6 million pounds worth of coins" from the US mints at Denver and San Fransisco.
After WWII finished we had plenty of coins and we did the change over to 50% in 1946. The RBA was removing the old 92.5% coins extracting excess silver and re-issung the 50% coins.
This was going well until around 1950, the UN (US) had entered Korea and badly needed wool for winter uniforms. This caused such a boom in Australia (we were riding on the sheeps back), that the RBA had to re-issue all the 92.5 coinage it had collected in 1950 and turn to The Royal Mint for the 1951 PL coins.
Once the Korean war was over we once again had enough coinage for Australia to ship back to the US "some 6 million pounds worth of silver" in 1956.
The US has had more than just minted coins for Australia, it has influenced other events as well.
coggie
