Saturday, September 5, 2009

20 cent pieces

It's fairly rare to find commemorative 20 cent coins in Australia, so imagine my delight when I came across this number:



Right, Queen Elizabeth II on everything as usual, no surprises there.



And then on the flip side there's a kiwi bird and a silver fern.

Hey, wait a minute... those are endemic to New Zealand! Sure enough, it's a NZ 20 cent piece (worth 16 australia cents). They look the same, are the same weight (11.3 grams), diameter (28.5 mm) etc.- way to differentiate yourself island nation number 2!

Indeed, the 5, 10 and 20 cent coins of New Zealand were practically identical to Australia until 2006 when New Zealand redesigned, in particular making them smaller. Aus still has the biggest coin, the 50 cent piece, in the world: a stack of 30 of them would weigh a pound (note to self in case I'm ever in a prison riot). Yet for all that effort, NZ still kept the queen on every coin.

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