Kangaroos on Coins

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Australia, half penny and penny.

No, we have not had a topic on kangaroos until now.

The problem is really that they are all located in Australia and Papua New Guinea,.

So far only Australia has produced coins that depict them.

The idea of Polish kangaroos is somewhat inauthentic, I feel.

Anyway, here are the Australian predecimal halfpenny and penny.

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Australia, $1, 1984.

Here is the Australian circulation dollar, first issued in 1984.

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Australia, 1 shilling, 1916.

The older version of the Australian numismatic coat of arms.

It depicts a kangaroo and an emu.

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Australia, florin, 1939.

An updated version of the coat of arms appears on this florin.

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Australia, florin, 1939.

Note how the older florin was dually denominated.

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Australia, 50 cents, 1969.



Australia, 50 cents, 1966.

The first Australian 50 cents coin of 1966 was round.

It displayed an updated coat of arms.

Later issues were 12-sided.

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Australia, 50 cents, 2001.

The Australian Federation commemoratives of 2001 produced quite a few varieties.

Here you see a kangaroo's head on the Victoria commemorative.

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Australia, 50 cents, 2001.

The Federation as a whole is commemorated here.

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Australia, 50 cents, 2001.

Northern Territory.

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Australia, 50 cents, 2001.

Western Australia.

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Australia, 50 cents, 2001.

New South Wales. Kangaroo and lion.

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Australia, 50 cents, 2001.

Norfolk Island.

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Australia, $1, 1988.

Aboriginal art.

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Australian, florin, 1954.

Commemorating Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Australia.

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Australia, 1988.  Aboriginal art.

That design I find interesting; maybe because it's quite different from the others.   As for kangaroos/wallabies in Europe, well, of course you can find them in zoos. Apart from that (let me quote from the Polish central bank's brochure), "In Europe, feral or stray Bennett's wallabies (usually from private and public zoos) make up a constant though small population in Great Britain (the oldest groups derive from the wallabies that strayed in 1920). A group of approximately 30 kangaroos lives in the wild 50 km west of Paris – they are the descendants of wallabies from one of the zoos, that escaped after a hurricane in the 1970s."

So maybe it would have made more sense for the Royal Mint and the Monnaie de Paris to get involved in that common issue. Ah well, the two shown in the initial post are for collectors only anyway. Most of the other pieces may actually occur (or have occurred) in the wild.

Christian