Why Did Canada And Wales Mint Australian Coins In 1981?

Thanks princetane




That's a bit embarrassing

I am amazed that Japan would charge 100 Yen ($1.25) to play a video game in 1978.

Plus these games came from Japan and their technologu was the best in the world in the 70s and 80s, its plausible.

The video game thing must have had some credibility as the numbers of parlours opening up peaked in 1982 (According to my December 1983 Consumer which has a moral panic article about them). It mentioned garbage like most people who played them were hoodlums and it showed mostly beafroed Maori kids wearing adidas trackpants and Nomads standing at the wooden consoles.

In reality it was the unscrupulous operators that ran these parlours. The article mentioned stories of kids breaking $10 and $20 notes, most likely stolen into 20 cent pieces and spending all day playing the machines along with guys selling marijuana and other things there in the dark fetid air.

It was a HUGE fad David during 1981 and 1982 and right up to 1985 here.

Plus I think the need for them as a coin of commerce (A big gap between them and the 50c) and also for other machines like food vending and parking meters.

Yeah, it was a huge fad in Australia. Having been born in 1970 I was in my early teens when it hit so I remember it well. As big as it was, I don't believe it was as big as in Japan where it all started. I think there still are video arcades in Japan whereas they have all gone in Oz. If it was bigger in Japan yet didn't cause a coin shortage, I'm not sure why it would have in Oz. Also, we used to play video games at Grundies, down the coast. All their machines used Grundy tokens. Not sure how many other large arcades did that. And as I said, all the coins put through the machines were back in circulation the next day.
Would also like to know what the split was in machines between arcades and snack bars. Almost every snack bar had at least 1 machine, sometimes 2-3. Who remembers the glass topped dual machines? They always had those hour glass plastic chairs. You'd put your burger and shake on the glass surface while you played your mate. And I'm still dirty at my best mate for winning an Atari game system (the bees knees at the time) with a paddle pop at a petrol station when his family already had one! Talk about unfair!!!



This sound more credible.

There was increased demand for low-denomination coinage in the early 1980s due to the rise of coin-operated machines generaly (including video games), but this alone is not the full explanation. I agree with airgem. The RAM ordinarily would have had capacity, but a strike by mint workers reduced capacity and caused the government to outsource coinage production overseas.

This same industrial action is what has been blamed for the "round aussie rules football" mistake on the Commonwealth Games $10 silver coin, with the coinciding description of the sport on some of the $10 packaging as "volleyball". Volleyball is not, and never has been, a Commonwealth Games sport, but Aussie Rules was played here in 1982 as an official demonstration sport. But the Mint strike meant that the people normally doing such fact-checking weren't on the job.

The arrival of the $1 coin in 1984 reduced circulation pressure on the smaller denominations, as peoiple began to use them in place of handfuls of 20 cent pieces. This, along with the oversupply from the foreign mints, caused a glut in supply of 20 cent coins in particular; millions of unissued 1984 20 cent coins sat around in vaults for years, before most were eventually melted down again.

Only time I ever went to Grundy's in the mid to late 80s, the tokens were 3 for $1.

Which is of course the beauty of using tokens. You can bump up your prices across the board without having to go to the expense of re-tooling every machine, simply by raising the cost of a token.

We had the same thing here later. Big and brighter machines like the ride on ones and the cased shooter ones cost more than 20c a play and a company called "Time Out" started selling brass tokens that cost like $1 each or 3 for $2. By 1992 every game was $1 or $2 to cash in with the new greed for better games and the new $1 and $2 released in 1991. Yet many arcades kept a retro section with old 20 cent games - yet most were "tooled up" to be 50 cent games or only worked with 2 x 20c coins.

Our 50c unlike yours was round and only marginally larger. Inflation meant the 50 cents took over from the 20 cents.

As for condom machines, I was too young, but know here in New Zealand when Labour came in 1984, they made u a free market economy and all sorts of things got legalised - I would say they showed up by 1987, as young kids we still sniggered about things like that calling them GI Rubber Joes and French envelopes etc.

The person who mentioned the dollar coin (Sap) that is a good point and explains a lot, I would never have guessed that as we did not get $1 coins until 7 years after you guys.

Are u a Queenslander Sap? Or was there more than 1 Grundy's Entertainment Centre? Price may have been 3 for $1.

PT - I think you are reading too much into the greed factor. From what I can gather, video arcades took over from sleezy pinball arcades but the appeal to the younger generation meant that many of the new establishments were more family oriented. In such a competitive market I'm pretty certain new cutting edge games came at a cost. The producers of these games were not fools and priced the purchase/hire agreements accordingly.



Ha ha... That reminds me of a ruse with public telephones in Surfers Paradise when we were young teens. I used a public telephone to call home(yep, mobiles phones didn't exist then). The telephone gobbled up my money but I couldn't make the call. As I walked away I noticed an older teenager approach the machine and heard the sound of coins being ejected. Me and my mate watched this for a while and observed there were 3 teenagers working the telephones. We approached one of them and said we knew something was up but we just wanted our money back. He not only gave me my money back but told us how they worked the telephones. The telephones didn't take 50c pieces. If you did insert a 50c piece it got jammed inside. The kids basically loaded all the telephones (10-12 from memory) with 50c pieces. As punters (mainly tourists) made a call, their money got caught up behind the 50c piece. With the 50c piece jamming the machine the punter couldn't get their money back so eventually left empty handed. Once they left, the felons would use a paddle pop stick to force the 50c piece and other change through the telephone so it came out in the reject chute. They would keep the change and re-insert the 50c piece to prime the telephone for the next sucker. He had at least $10 in his pocket. Reckon they were clearing $50-100 a day. Pretty ingenious in a way....



I grew up in the good old Joh Bjelke Petersen era in Qld where christian morals were enshrined in law while brothels and corrupt coppers (and ministers) profited. In the early 90s we still had 9-5 trading except Thursday evenings and no trading on a Sunday (I think the brothels still traded). Even to this day Qld has archaic liquor laws. I envy those who get the great value Aldi wine packs down south but sorry, not available in Qld.