2 Dollars - Charles III 1st Portrait - Christmas Nutcracker

The Perth Mint has been producing themed holiday coinage for the Australian market since the 1990s, and the Nutcracker motif draws on the 1892 Saint Petersburg premiere of Tchaikovsky's ballet — itself adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 story by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Charles III's first portrait, sculpted by Dominic Dickens and approved for circulation and collector coinage from 2023, appears here in its earliest years of use following the king's accession in September 2022.