1/2 Dollar - Victoria

Hong Kong's half dollar coinage of the 1860s was a direct response to the colony's chronic shortage of reliable fractional silver, which merchants had long patched over with a chaotic mix of chopmarked Spanish and Mexican pieces. The Royal Mint's new branch in Hong Kong — opened in 1866 on Causeway Bay — struck these coins as part of its founding mandate, though the enterprise proved financially ruinous almost from the start.

The branch mint closed in 1868, just two years after opening, unable to compete with the flood of Mexican trade dollars already entrenched in local commerce. Dies and equipment were subsequently sold to Japan, where they contributed to the early infrastructure of the Osaka Mint.