10 Dollars - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait - Adelaide Pound - Bimetal Gilt

The Adelaide Pound of 1852 was struck under emergency conditions by the privately-operated Adelaide Assay Office, established because gold from the Victorian rushes was flooding South Australia faster than the colonial government could manage it. Britain never formally sanctioned the issue, and the Colonial Office demanded it cease — making the original one of the few coins in Australian history minted in open defiance of imperial authority. This 2002 commemorative reproduces that design in bimetallic gilt format, the gold-plated silver centre echoing the original's alloy controversy in a quietly apt way.