1 Dollar - Elizabeth II 3rd Portrait - The Holey Dollar

The original Holey Dollar was created in 1813 when Governor Lachlan Macquarie, facing a chronic coin shortage in the colony of New South Wales, ordered 40,000 Spanish Colonial eight reales punched through the center. Each parent coin yielded two new pieces — the ring became the Holey Dollar, valued at five shillings, while the central disc, called the Dump, circulated at fifteen pence. The mutilation also made re-export profitable: a Spanish dollar worth around four shillings and ninepence in trade was suddenly worth six shillings and threepence combined, discouraging merchants from draining the colony's currency.

This 1988 issue commemorates the bicentenary of European settlement in Australia. The punched-out center deliberately replicates the original's distinctive form.