{"title":"Australian Coins","description":"\u003cp\u003eAustralian coins span more than a century of minting, from the pre-decimal pennies and halfpennies struck at branches of the Royal Mint in Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth to the modern decimal wildlife series produced in Canberra. The pre-decimal coins carried their own iconography — kangaroos on the penny, wheat stalks on the threepence, the merino ram on the shilling, the coat of arms on the florin — and were denominated in a pounds-shillings-pence system that Australia shared with Britain until 1966.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWhen the country switched to dollars and cents on February 14, 1966, Stuart Devlin designed the reverses for all six decimal denominations: a feathertail glider, a frilled-neck lizard, an echidna, a lyrebird, a platypus, and a kangaroo. The result was one of the most celebrated wildlife series in world numismatics — each animal rendered in its natural behavior, not posed heraldically. Devlin's designs have remained on Australian coins for over half a century through five different portrait sculptors and two denomination withdrawals.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe full range of Australian coinage — from colonial-era tokens through the silver coins of the early Commonwealth to the copper-nickel decimal series and the modern steel-plated issues — records a country's evolving identity in metal. Some dates were produced in the millions and then melted, making survivors scarcer than coins with lower mintages. Every Australian coin, whether pre-decimal or post, carries a piece of a monetary history that stretches back to the first branch mints of the nineteenth century.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"1984-australia-10-cents-lyrebird-elizabeth-ii-fine","title":"1984 Australia 10 Cents — Elizabeth II \/ Superb Lyrebird — Stuart Devlin Design — Fine","description":"\u003cp\u003e☢️ Fed into a parking meter in Canberra, this ten-cent coin carried a bird famous for singing in voices that were never its own — the superb lyrebird, whose tail feathers fill the reverse like a botanical explosion rendered in copper-nickel.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis 1984 Australian 10 cents was struck at the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra, carrying Stuart Devlin's lyrebird design that has appeared on the denomination since decimalization in 1966. The superb lyrebird — Menura novaehollandiae — is one of Australia's most extraordinary birds, capable of mimicking chainsaws, camera shutters, car alarms, and the calls of dozens of other species with uncanny accuracy. Devlin rendered it in full courtship display, its lyre-shaped tail feathers fanned forward over its body in a design so detailed that individual barbs are visible on the plumes.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis is the last year of Arnold Machin's portrait of Elizabeth II on Australian coinage. In 1985, the younger Machin portrait gave way to Raphael Maklouf's crowned rendering of a more mature queen. For collectors who track the transition between royal portraits across Commonwealth nations, 1984 Australian coins occupy a specific boundary year.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e💡 Everyday Life at the Time\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In 1984, ten cents bought a local phone call from a public booth or a newspaper from a corner shop. Bob Hawke was Prime Minister, and the Prices and Incomes Accord with the trade unions was reshaping the Australian economy. The one-dollar coin was introduced that same year to replace the dollar note, and Australians were adjusting to carrying heavier coins in their pockets. The Summer Olympics were in Los Angeles, and Australia sent 247 athletes.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e📜 Historical Context\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Australia decimalized its currency on February 14, 1966 — Valentine's Day — replacing the pound with the dollar at a rate of two dollars to the pound. The ten-cent coin inherited the exact dimensions of the pre-decimal shilling: same diameter, same weight, same metal. Stuart Devlin designed the reverses for all six original decimal denominations, and the lyrebird on the ten cents was his most ambitious composition — a courtship display rendered in miniature that managed to feel both naturalistic and heraldic.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBy 1984, Australian decimal coinage was mature but about to change. The Machin portrait had been on every coin since 1966, and the transition to Maklouf in 1985 would visually mark the passage of time on a face that had been frozen in bronze youth for nearly two decades. Devlin himself was knighted in 1982 and would later serve as the official goldsmith and jeweller to the Queen — the same monarch whose portrait appeared opposite his designs on millions of Australian coins.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e🧾 Coin Details\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Country: Australia\u003cbr\u003eDenomination: 10 Cents\u003cbr\u003eYear: 1984\u003cbr\u003eGovernment: Commonwealth of Australia (Elizabeth II)\u003cbr\u003eComposition: Copper-nickel (75% copper, 25% nickel)\u003cbr\u003eWeight: 5.66 g\u003cbr\u003eDiameter: 23.62 mm\u003cbr\u003eThickness: 1.70 mm\u003cbr\u003eMintage: Circulation strike, Royal Australian Mint, Canberra\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Fine — moderate circulation wear with the lyrebird's tail plume structure still clearly visible; individual barb detail softened on the highest points but the courtship display form remains intact; Elizabeth II portrait shows wear on the crown and hair detail consistent with years of handling\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis coin has the same weight and diameter as a New Zealand ten-cent piece — both inherited the dimensions of the pre-decimal shilling from opposite sides of the Tasman Sea. The copper-nickel alloy gives it a cool, silvery heft, and the lyrebird's tail feathers create a texture on the reverse that catches a fingernail as you turn the coin. Even in circulated condition, the design rewards close inspection — the lattice pattern in the filamentary plumes is one of the most intricate reverse designs on any circulating coin in the world.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e⭐ Why This Coin Is a Great Collectible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e • Stuart Devlin's superb lyrebird — one of the most detailed and celebrated wildlife designs in world coinage\u003cbr\u003e• Last year of the Arnold Machin portrait on Australian coins before the 1985 switch to Raphael Maklouf\u003cbr\u003e• The superb lyrebird is one of nature's great mimics, able to reproduce virtually any sound it encounters\u003cbr\u003e• Same dimensions as the pre-decimal shilling it replaced — a physical link to the old pound system\u003cbr\u003e• Struck at the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra, one of the youngest national mints in the Commonwealth\u003cbr\u003e• Copper-nickel composition identical to the New Zealand ten-cent coin — both inherited from the same British shilling specification\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e💡 Collector Tip\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Once you place this Australian ten-cent coin next to a New Zealand ten-cent coin from the same decade, the similarity is immediate — same size, same weight, same metal, same queen. The kind of collector who pairs coins from neighboring Commonwealth nations is the kind who starts to understand how deeply the British monetary system shaped the Southern Hemisphere. The reverses tell completely different stories — a lyrebird on one, a Māori carved head on the other — but the physical coins are interchangeable in the hand, and for years they circulated across both countries interchangeably.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eYou will receive the exact coin shown in these photographs. All coins are authentic and unaltered — we don't enhance patina or touch up surfaces. Grades are conservative; circulated pieces show honest wear from actual use, not damage or mishandling. Carefully packaged. Ships promptly with tracking.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe lyrebird sings in borrowed voices. The coin carries a borrowed portrait. Both have been Australian longer than most people remember.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WadesCoinShop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48010996646102,"sku":"S-OCN-AUST-10CT-1984","price":0.79,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/4939\/5158\/files\/20260329_171302.jpg?v=1774824784"},{"product_id":"1999-australia-20-cents-platypus-elizabeth-ii-f-vf","title":"1999 Australia 20 Cents — Elizabeth II \/ Platypus — Stuart Devlin Design — F to VF","description":"\u003cp\u003e🌍 Spilled from a pocketful of coins at a milk bar in Melbourne, this twenty-cent piece carried an animal that confounded European naturalists so thoroughly that the first specimen sent to London was dismissed as a hoax — a mammal with a duck's bill, a beaver's tail, venomous spurs, and the ability to sense electrical fields underwater.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis 1999 Australian 20 cents features Stuart Devlin's platypus swimming through rippled water, a design that has appeared on the denomination since decimalization in 1966. Devlin, who designed the reverses for all six original Australian decimal coins and later became the official goldsmith to the Queen, called the platypus his personal favorite among the series. The water ripples create a sense of depth and movement that few coin designs achieve — the platypus appears to be swimming beneath the surface of the metal itself.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe obverse carries the fourth portrait of Elizabeth II, designed by Ian Rank-Broadley and introduced to Australian coinage in 1999. This is its debut year. The queen is now depicted at seventy-three, wearing the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara, with visibly more detail in the facial lines than any previous portrait.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e💡 Everyday Life at the Time\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In 1999, twenty cents bought a local phone call or contributed toward a flat white at a café counter. Australia was preparing for the Sydney Olympics the following year, and the economy was riding the tail end of a long expansion. The republic referendum had just failed — Australians voted to keep the monarchy in November 1999, the same monarch whose newest portrait had arrived on their coins that year.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e📜 Historical Context\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The platypus is one of only five surviving species of monotremes — egg-laying mammals that split from the rest of the mammalian family tree over a hundred million years ago. When a preserved specimen arrived at the British Museum in 1799, the zoologist George Shaw examined it with scissors, looking for stitches that would prove it was a taxidermist's joke. He found none. In Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, the platypus was said to have been born from a duck and a water rat, and when the land animals, water animals, and birds all competed for its loyalty, the platypus chose to belong to no group — deciding it did not need a category to be special.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDevlin rendered the animal in its natural element, swimming with its bill forward and its flat tail trailing through concentric water ripples. The design inherited the dimensions of the pre-decimal florin — same diameter, same weight, same metal — and at over eleven grams, the twenty-cent coin remains the heaviest silver-colored coin in regular Australian circulation.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e🧾 Coin Details\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Country: Australia\u003cbr\u003eDenomination: 20 Cents\u003cbr\u003eYear: 1999\u003cbr\u003eGovernment: Commonwealth of Australia (Elizabeth II)\u003cbr\u003eComposition: Copper-nickel (75% copper, 25% nickel)\u003cbr\u003eWeight: 11.31 g\u003cbr\u003eDiameter: 28.52 mm\u003cbr\u003eThickness: 2.0 mm\u003cbr\u003eMintage: Circulation strike, Royal Australian Mint, Canberra\u003cbr\u003eCondition: F to VF — moderate circulation wear with the platypus body and water ripples still clearly defined; bill and tail detail legible; Elizabeth II portrait shows the fourth rendering with visible facial detail; surface contact marks consistent with years of heavy daily use\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis is the heaviest coin in the Oceania collection by a significant margin. At over eleven grams, it fills the palm with a cool, dense weight that immediately sets it apart from the five- and ten-cent pieces beside it. The water ripples on the reverse create a topography you can feel — concentric rings of raised metal radiating outward from the platypus, giving the coin a texture unlike anything flat or heraldic. Flip it to the obverse and the queen has aged visibly from the Machin and Maklouf portraits on earlier Australian coins.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e⭐ Why This Coin Is a Great Collectible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e • Features Stuart Devlin's platypus — his personal favorite design among all six Australian decimal reverses\u003cbr\u003e• First year of the Ian Rank-Broadley portrait on Australian coinage — a new rendering of the queen at seventy-three\u003cbr\u003e• The platypus is one of only five surviving monotremes — an egg-laying mammal that confounded European science\u003cbr\u003e• Same dimensions as the pre-decimal florin — a physical link to the old pound system at over eleven grams\u003cbr\u003e• Water ripple design creates a three-dimensional effect unique among circulating coin reverses worldwide\u003cbr\u003e• Aboriginal Dreamtime significance: the platypus chose to belong to no group, deciding it did not need a category to be special\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e💡 Collector Tip\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Once you hold this twenty-cent platypus next to the ten-cent lyrebird from the same country, you realize Stuart Devlin gave Australia a wildlife series that treated every denomination as a portrait of a different creature in its natural habitat — not static heraldry, but animals in motion. The kind of collector who compares reverse designs across denominations is the kind who starts to see a national coinage as a curated gallery, not a set of interchangeable discs. Australia's six original decimal reverses — glider, lizard, echidna, lyrebird, platypus, and kangaroo — form one of the most celebrated wildlife series in numismatics.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eYou will receive the exact coin shown in these photographs. All coins are authentic and unaltered — we don't enhance patina or touch up surfaces. Grades are conservative; circulated pieces show honest wear from actual use, not damage or mishandling. Carefully packaged. Ships promptly with tracking.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe naturalist looked for stitches and found a real animal. The designer called it his favorite and put it underwater forever.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WadesCoinShop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48011027972310,"sku":"S-OCN-AUST-20CT-1999","price":1.29,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/4939\/5158\/files\/20260329_171817.jpg?v=1774825800"},{"product_id":"1983-australia-10-cents-lyrebird-stuart-devlin-f-vf","title":"1983 Australia 10 Cents — Elizabeth II \/ Superb Lyrebird — Stuart Devlin Design — F to VF","description":"\u003cp\u003e☢️ Rescued from a jar of mixed change somewhere in suburban Australia, this ten-cent coin belongs to a year when the Royal Australian Mint struck tens of millions of lyrebird pieces — and then melted almost the entire run back into raw metal.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis 1983 Australian 10 cents is a survival coin. The Royal Australian Mint in Canberra produced approximately forty million ten-cent pieces dated 1983, but demand never materialized. Rather than store the surplus, the mint melted the vast majority and exported the copper-nickel as base metal bars. Estimates suggest only a few thousand 1983 ten-cent coins survive in any form. A coin that was minted by the millions became scarcer than many coins produced in the thousands — not because few were made, but because almost all were unmade.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eStuart Devlin's superb lyrebird fills the reverse in full courtship display, the same design that has appeared on Australian ten-cent coins since 1966. The Arnold Machin portrait on the obverse places this among the final years of the young queen on Australian coinage — Machin gave way to Maklouf in 1985.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e💡 Everyday Life at the Time\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The year 1983 was one of extremes in Australia. On February 16, the Ash Wednesday bushfires swept through South Australia and Victoria, killing seventy-five people and destroying over two thousand homes in the worst fire disaster in Australian history to that date. Seven months later, on September 26, Australia II won the America's Cup from the New York Yacht Club, breaking a 132-year winning streak and triggering celebrations that Prime Minister Bob Hawke — who had taken office only six months earlier — marked by declaring that \"any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e📜 Historical Context\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The decision to melt the 1983 and 1984 ten-cent runs reveals something about the economics of coinage that most people never consider: a mint can overproduce, and when it does, destroying the surplus is cheaper than storing it. The copper-nickel alloy in these coins had a commodity value as raw metal, and converting millions of finished coins back into ingots was a straightforward industrial process. The coins that escaped — the ones that reached circulation before the melt, or that were set aside in mint sets — became accidental survivors.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBob Hawke's Labor government, elected in March 1983, inherited an economy in recession and a drought that was devastating agricultural regions. The Australian dollar was floated in December 1983, ending the fixed exchange rate and beginning the modern era of Australian monetary policy. The ten-cent coins minted that year circulated through a country that was simultaneously burning, celebrating, and transforming its economic foundations.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e🧾 Coin Details\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Country: Australia\u003cbr\u003eDenomination: 10 Cents\u003cbr\u003eYear: 1983\u003cbr\u003eGovernment: Commonwealth of Australia (Elizabeth II)\u003cbr\u003eComposition: Copper-nickel (75% copper, 25% nickel)\u003cbr\u003eWeight: 5.66 g\u003cbr\u003eDiameter: 23.62 mm\u003cbr\u003eThickness: 1.70 mm\u003cbr\u003eMintage: ~40,000,000 struck; vast majority melted — estimated few thousand survivors\u003cbr\u003eCondition: F to VF — moderate circulation wear with lyrebird tail plume structure visible; individual feather barbs softened but the courtship display form remains clear; Machin portrait shows honest wear on the crown and hair; surface consistent with decades of handling\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe coin feels identical to every other Australian ten-cent piece — same weight, same diameter, same cool copper-nickel in the palm. Nothing about it announces its scarcity. That is what makes the melt-down story unsettling: this coin looks like every other ten-cent piece from the 1980s, but almost none of its siblings exist anymore. The lyrebird on the reverse sings in a voice that millions of identical coins will never echo.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e⭐ Why This Coin Is a Great Collectible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e • Melt-down survivor — tens of millions were struck in 1983, but almost the entire run was destroyed and exported as base metal\u003cbr\u003e• Estimated few thousand survivors from a mintage of approximately forty million — scarcity created by destruction, not limited production\u003cbr\u003e• Stuart Devlin's lyrebird in full courtship display — one of the most celebrated wildlife designs in numismatics\u003cbr\u003e• Struck in the year of the Ash Wednesday bushfires and Australia's America's Cup victory — a year of national extremes\u003cbr\u003e• Arnold Machin portrait in its penultimate year on Australian coinage\u003cbr\u003e• Physically identical to common-date ten-cent coins — the scarcity is invisible until you know the history\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e💡 Collector Tip\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Once you learn that some coin dates are scarce not because few were struck but because most were destroyed, you start asking a different question about every coin you hold: how many of these are left? The kind of collector who checks survival rates alongside mintage numbers is the kind who understands that a coin's rarity is not always decided at the mint — sometimes it is decided afterward, in the furnace. Several Australian dates from the early 1980s share this melt-down history, and the survivors circulate unnoticed alongside billions of common-date coins that look exactly the same.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eYou will receive the exact coin shown in these photographs. All coins are authentic and unaltered — we don't enhance patina or touch up surfaces. Grades are conservative; circulated pieces show honest wear from actual use, not damage or mishandling. Carefully packaged. Ships promptly with tracking.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eForty million were struck. Almost none survived. This one did. It does not look special. That is the point.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WadesCoinShop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48011040719062,"sku":"S-OCN-AUST-10CT-1983","price":0.89,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/4939\/5158\/files\/20260329_171929.jpg?v=1774825894"},{"product_id":"1991-australia-5-cents-echidna-elizabeth-ii-ef-au","title":"1991 Australia 5 Cents — Elizabeth II \/ Short-Beaked Echidna — Stuart Devlin Design — EF to AU","description":"\u003cp\u003e☢️ Shaken loose from a coin jar in a Sydney kitchen, this five-cent piece carried an animal that defies every category zoology has tried to place it in — a spiny, egg-laying, ant-eating mammal that has survived in Australia for at least twenty million years.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis 1991 Australian 5 cents features Stuart Devlin's short-beaked echidna curled into its defensive posture, spines radiating outward around the denomination. The echidna is one of only two surviving genera of monotremes — egg-laying mammals — alongside the platypus on Australia's twenty-cent coin. Devlin rendered it face-on, its elongated snout pointing directly at the viewer, its clawed feet gripping the ground beneath the numeral. The design has appeared on Australian five-cent coins since decimalization in 1966.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe obverse carries Raphael Maklouf's crowned portrait of Elizabeth II. The year 1991 marks the last time Australia minted its one-cent and two-cent coins for circulation — the echidna was about to become the lowest denomination in the country.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e💡 Everyday Life at the Time\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In 1991, five cents still bought a local phone call from a public booth and was the standard tip for rounding up at a corner shop. Australia was in its worst recession since the 1930s — Treasurer Paul Keating had called it \"the recession we had to have\" the previous year, and unemployment was climbing toward eleven percent. The one-cent and two-cent coins were being withdrawn from circulation as inflation had rendered them functionally worthless, and Australian shopkeepers began rounding cash transactions to the nearest five cents.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e📜 Historical Context\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe withdrawal of the one- and two-cent coins in 1991–1992 was a practical response to inflation, but it quietly elevated the five-cent echidna to a new status. The feathertail glider on the one cent and the frilled-neck lizard on the two cents would vanish from daily circulation, leaving the echidna as the smallest creature — and the smallest coin — in the Australian wildlife series. The denomination inherited the exact dimensions of the pre-decimal sixpence, and the five-cent piece remains in circulation today as the lowest-value coin Australians handle.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe echidna itself is one of Australia's most widely distributed native mammals, found across the entire continent and in New Guinea. Unlike the platypus, which is restricted to eastern waterways, the echidna thrives in deserts, forests, and suburban gardens. When threatened, it curls into a ball of spines — exactly the posture Devlin captured on this coin, transforming a defensive reflex into a design that fills a circle perfectly.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e🧾 Coin Details\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCountry: Australia\u003cbr\u003eDenomination: 5 Cents\u003cbr\u003eYear: 1991\u003cbr\u003eGovernment: Commonwealth of Australia (Elizabeth II)\u003cbr\u003eComposition: Copper-nickel (75% copper, 25% nickel)\u003cbr\u003eWeight: 2.83 g\u003cbr\u003eDiameter: 19.41 mm\u003cbr\u003eThickness: 1.30 mm\u003cbr\u003eMintage: Circulation strike, Royal Australian Mint, Canberra\u003cbr\u003eCondition: EF to AU — exceptional preservation with sharp spine detail radiating from the echidna's body; individual quills are crisply defined; the snout, eye, and clawed feet retain full relief; Maklouf portrait shows minimal wear on the crown and hair detail; near-original lustre visible in the fields\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAt under three grams and nineteen millimeters, this is the same size and weight as a New Zealand five-cent tuatara — both inherited from the British sixpence. The copper-nickel has a clean, bright silvery tone that this particular coin has preserved unusually well. The echidna's spines create a halo of fine raised lines that catch light from every angle, and the face peering out from the center of that halo has the slightly startled expression of an animal that was not expecting to be noticed.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e⭐ Why This Coin Is a Great Collectible\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e • Features Stuart Devlin's echidna — a monotreme rendered in its characteristic defensive curl, spines radiating around the denomination\u003cbr\u003e• Struck in 1991, the last year Australia minted its one- and two-cent coins — the echidna was about to become the country's lowest denomination\u003cbr\u003e• The echidna is one of only two surviving monotreme genera on Earth — egg-laying mammals that predate most of the mammalian family tree\u003cbr\u003e• Same dimensions as the pre-decimal sixpence and the New Zealand tuatara five-cent coin — the shared British specification crossing the Tasman\u003cbr\u003e• Exceptional preservation with near-original lustre — an uncommon survival condition for a thirty-five-year-old circulation coin\u003cbr\u003e• Raphael Maklouf portrait in the final years of the Cold War era\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e💡 Collector Tip\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce you hold this five-cent echidna next to the twenty-cent platypus from the same country, you are holding both surviving genera of monotremes in one hand — the only two lineages of egg-laying mammals left on Earth, separated by over twenty million years of evolution and united on Australian pocket change. The kind of collector who pairs coins by biological classification instead of denomination is the kind who starts to see a national coinage as a natural history collection in miniature. Stuart Devlin gave Australia six animals across six denominations, and the echidna and platypus together represent a branch of life that exists nowhere else.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eYou will receive the exact coin shown in these photographs. All coins are authentic and unaltered — we don't enhance patina or touch up surfaces. Grades are conservative; circulated pieces show honest wear from actual use, not damage or mishandling. Carefully packaged. Ships promptly with tracking.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe echidna curls into a ball when it feels threatened. Devlin turned that reflex into a coin design that fits a circle as if the animal had always been meant to be minted.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WadesCoinShop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48011051958486,"sku":"S-OCN-NZLD-5CT-1991","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/4939\/5158\/files\/20260329_172054.jpg?v=1774826136"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/4939\/5158\/collections\/20260329_171817.jpg?v=1774827076","url":"https:\/\/wadescoinshop.myshopify.com\/collections\/australian-coins.oembed","provider":"WadesCoinShop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}