{"id":800,"date":"2012-09-02T02:15:57","date_gmt":"2012-09-02T08:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/?p=800"},"modified":"2012-09-01T22:16:22","modified_gmt":"2012-09-02T04:16:22","slug":"rare-australian-holey-dollar-fetches-425000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/02\/rare-australian-holey-dollar-fetches-425000\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare Australian ‘Holey Dollar’ fetches $425,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Three rare Australian coins including the most famous example of the nation’s first coin the “Holey Dollar” have fetched Aus$880,000 (US$911,000) at auction.<\/p>\n

The coin known as the “Hannibal Head” Holey Dollar — created in New South Wales state in 1813 from an 1810 Silver Dollar minted at the Lima Mint in Peru — sold for Aus$410,000, an auction record for a coin of its type.<\/p>\n

Dealer Coinworks also auctioned an 1852 Adelaide Pound, the nation’s first gold coin, at the sale in Melbourne late Monday with that item attracting Aus$370,000, while an 1813 Colonial Dump coin sold for Aus$100,000.<\/p>\n

“I saw really beautiful quality coins sell for very exciting prices, so from a Coinworks perspective, and an industry perspective, there are no complaints,” Coinworks managing director Belinda Downie said.<\/p>\n

The Hannibal Head coin is the only known example in private hands, with only one other known to exist held by the State Library of New South Wales.<\/p>\n

It was one of 40,000 Spanish silver dollars obtained by Governor Lachlan Macquarie to alleviate the British colony’s coin shortage in the early 1800s.<\/p>\n

Macquarie enlisted the help of a convicted forger, William Henshall, to cut a hole in the centre of each.<\/p>\n

The resulting “donut” was then stamped over with the words New South Wales, the value Five Shillings and the date 1813 to create Australia’s first coin, the 1813 Holey Dollar.<\/p>\n

The piece taken out of the centre became the 1813 Colonial Dump, with a value of 15 pence.<\/p>\n

The Hannibal Head Holey Dollar is special because the original coin was minted in 1810 at the Lima Mint with a portrait design that protested Joseph Bonaparte’s ascension to the Spanish throne by use of an unflattering portrait.<\/p>\n

Adding to the history, it was discovered in 1881 near Hobart in Tasmania and believed to be from the cache of a bushranger, or outlaw, who would have robbed passing travellers.<\/p>\n

Photo AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three rare Australian coins including the most famous example of the nation’s first coin the “Holey Dollar” have fetched Aus$880,000 (US$911,000) at auction. The coin known as the “Hannibal Head” Holey Dollar — created in New South Wales state in 1813 from an 1810 Silver Dollar minted at the Lima Mint in Peru — sold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions\/807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}