Australia’s earliest coins - including 1813 Holey Dollar with $90k price tag - selling at auction

Australia’s earliest and most rare coins and colonial currency - including our first-ever half sovereign and an 1813 Holey Dollar with a $90,000 price tag - are up for auction this week.

Scott Waterman with a 1813 NSW Holey Dollar featuring a scarce unlisted die pairing (a colonial icon with exceptional pedigree). Starting bid is $90,000. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Some of Australia’s earliest and most rare colonial coins are up for auction this week in Brisbane, with one starting bids from $90,000.

The second of three Signature Sales this year at Roxbury’s Auction House will start on Wednesday, with more than 2,500 lots of rare coins, banknotes and medals, including historical gold and colonial currency issues.

Roxbury’s director Scott Waterman said the online auction will feature many colonial and early Australian goods, which are “more commonly found in the southern states”.

Among the standout items for sale are Australia’s first-ever half sovereign coin - the 1855 Sydney Mint Type 1, and an 1857 proof half sovereign - Sydney Mint Type II, with bids currently at $50,000 each.

A half sovereign. Image: Roxbury's

Mr Waterman said the 1855 half sovereign was one of Australia’s first gold coins.

“This was really quite a primitive time if you can imagine and money was quite scarce.

“The surviving examples are really limited, particularly in the half sovereign.

“Most of the 1855 half sovereigns known are in terrible condition, they’ve got holes in them and they’ve been dug up quite often.

“This would be in the top five in terms of condition.”

An even earlier silver coin is also available, an 1813 NSW Holey Dollar, for which the starting bid is $90,000.

Mr Waterman said early settlers made them out of the world currency at the time, Spanish eight reales.

“The idea was to punch out the middle so that they could create two coins and help with the shortage of currency.

“What we have in this sale, we have both the Holey Dollar, which is the larger denomination and the dump, which is the 15 pence, the smaller punch which comes out the centre of the coin.”

Some of the items in this week's auction. Image: Roxbury's

The auction has also listed one of only 32 surviving 1914 “Rainbow Pound” emergency banknotes, according to Roxbury’s.

Mr Waterman said the notes were only created for a “short period of time between 1913 and 1914”, during a currency shortage in World War One.

“Rainbow Pound refers to the bright face of the note.

“It was a lot nicer banknote than anything else that was issued at the time, so it’s always been a collector’s favourite.

“The example we have is new to the market.”

The 1855 Sydney Mint Type I - a landmark coin in stunning condition, the current bid of which is $50,000 Picture: Nigel Hallett

Mr Waterman added the recent spike in the gold price had led to an influx onto the market.

“A lot of gold coin in general is resurfacing at the moment and we haven’t really seen this since 2010 when the price spiked then.

“There’s a lot of market activity at the moment.”

The online auction will open for bidding from Wednesday July 23 to Friday July 25, out of Roxbury’s head office in Hendra.

Mr Waterman said the auction has more than 1,000 participants registered, with past events hosting buyers from Europe, Asia and the US.

He added the auctions had become more accessible to new collectors as they came online, compared to previous in-person auctions which had mostly wholesalers and coin shops.

“In any one session, you might have a couple of hundred people participating and some of the quieter ones [will have] maybe 50 at a time.

“You get a mixture of trade and collectors nowadays because the auction runs through your iPhone.

“You can sit on the couch and bid along and that wasn’t available before.”

Originally published as Australia’s earliest coins - including 1813 Holey Dollar with $90k price tag - selling at auction