Provenance Of This New Zealand Half Crown?

A "DX" prefix to their service number indicates this particular soldier signed up in Darwin, Northern Territory; given the low population of the Territory at the time, low numbers are to be expected. According to this website, John William Yates, DX536 was born in Melbourne in 1911, signed up with the Australian Army on 4th June 1940 and was discharged on 23 March 1944 with the rank of Gunner with the 6th Field Regiment Artillery.

As to why an Aussie digger would choose a NZ halfcrown for his piece of trenchart... you'd have to ask him.

Now that is proper numismatic history - what a great story.

Wow--I wouldn't have imagined you could research trench art so well--excellent!

Sadly, in many cases such as this one, it is likely that it is the family that has sold the pieces in the first place.

I recently was given a collection of coins and memorabilia by a friend of the family to sell on their behalf; their father had been a commando in WWII and had a collection of interesting military badges from his service, but nobody in the family wanted to keep them after he passed away.

Australia, after all, did not coin halfcrowns. Aside from a single experiment with the crown, the largest piece was the florin.

I consider the two-year type crown of 1937-8 a single issue. You are free to differ.

The 1937 crown was intended as a coronation commemorative. The reason behind the 1938 crown issue is more obscure, and the result of a thorough mis-interpretation of the mood of the coin-using population of Australia.

The 1937 crown was originally conceived as a one-off commemorative coin for the coronation of Edward VIII; coin collectors had successfully lobbied the government to issue crowns, and federal Treasurer Richard Casey pushed the concept through parliament. Edward's abdication caused the original coronation to be replaced with that of his brother George VI, but the commemorative crown went ahead.

Basically, the 1937 crown was kept in large numbers as souvenirs of the coronation (and perhaps as a reminder of the whole Edward VIII abdication thing as well); very few of them were being returned to the banks. The government interpreted this statistic as actual use in circulation, so they concluded that there must be a high enough demand for the crown denomination to continue issuing them for circulation. It possibly isn't also a coincidence that striking a single crown is more profitable for the government than striking five one-shilling coins, adding to the attraction of continuing the crown issue.

The people, particularly the media (which lampooned the coins as "Casey's cartwheels") quickly set about correcting the government's mis-interpretation, which was confirmed by the resultant very low demand (and high return rate) of 1938 crowns. The issue was therefore discontinued partway through 1938, leaving a much smaller mintage in the second year (and, ironically, making that year much more desirable today).