Holey Dollar and Dump

[CoinCrusader42]

If I had my McDonald's book, I could probably answer the following question myself.  However, it is loaned out.

I'm curious about the Holey Dollar and Dump.

What is its purpose?

Does the middle piece slide in and out?

Any information will be appreciated.

 

[Humpybong]

When the colony of New South Wales was founded in Australia in 1788, it ran into the problem of a lack of coinage. Governor Lachlan Macquarie took the initiative of using £10,000 in Spanish dollars sent by the British government to produce suitable coins in a similar manner to that described above. These coins to the value of 40,000 Spanish dollars came on the 26 November 1812 on the merchant ship the Samarang from Madras, via the Honourable East India Company. To stop them from leaving the colony they were centred for two different issues of coins.

There was a central plugs (known as dumps) which were valued at 15 pence and were restruck with a new design (a crown on the obverse, the denomination on the reverse), whilst the dollars received an overstamp around the hole ("New South Wales 1813" on the obverse, "Five Shillings" on the reverse). The holey dollar became the first official currency produced specifically for circulation in Australia.

From 1822 these coins began to be recalled and replaced by sufficient sterling coinage (Pitt 2000). There are estimated to be 350 Holey dollars and 1500 dumps in remaining today.

[Sap]

It may be of interest to North Americans that Governor Macquarie copied the idea of making "holey dollars" from elsewhere: Governor Charles Smith of Prince Edward Island, Canada, issued a similar series of punched-out and countermarked dollars and dumps, for a similar reason: to combat the export of coins by mutilating them, thus making them unacceptable to merchants outside of the colony. In both cases, the coins were also given inflated values, making the colony that issued them the only place the merchants could obtain "full face value".

The PEI dollars and dump were cruder affairs, with a simple circle-of-triangles countermark; Here's an example of a dollar. As a result, they were relatively easy to counterfiet, such that today it's impossible to tell the difference between an "official" PEI holey dollar and a contemporary counterfeit.

Governor Macquarie down in New South Wales presumably heard of both the concept of a "holey dollar" and the difficulties with private imitations, so he took steps to make his coins a bit less reproducible, by stamping a ring around the hole left in the dollar, and by grinding flat and overstriking the dumps.

Because the former were simple countermarks, a PEI dump should fit neatly inside a PEI dollar. But because the inner rim of the NSW dollar was squashed down and the dump flattened by counterstriking, a NSW dump is much larger than the hole in a NSW dollar.

In 1988, the Perth Mint began issuing a series of .999 fine silver proof "bullion" coins with a "Holey Dollar and Dump" design and an aboriginal theme. The "Dollars" are $1 face value and 1 ounce, the "Dumps" are 25¢ face value (Australia's only "quarters"!) and 1/4 ounce of silver. The sizes were made to match; the "Dump" will fit exactly inside the hole in a "Dollar".

The Perth Mint issued "Holey Dollar and Dump" pairs in 1988, 1989 and finally in 1990, when the series was halted. The 1988 ones, sold as bicentennial souvenirs, are the most common. Finally, a Centenary of Federation "dollar and dump" was also made in 2001, with the "dump" star-shaped.

[CoinCrusader42]

Great information.

Thanks!!