1/2 Crown - Koala bear

The Isle of Man's Koala series was produced under a licensing arrangement with the Australian Koala program, part of a broader strategy by the Manx government in the 1980s to issue bullion-adjacent collector coins tied to popular wildlife themes. The island's treasury was notably aggressive in this period, flooding the market with gold issues across dozens of themes simultaneously — a volume that kept secondary market premiums thin on most types.

KM#287 at .948 fineness sits at an unusual purity, neither the standard .999 of modern bullion nor the traditional .9167 crown gold.