5 Dollars - Elizabeth II 3rd Portrait - Sydney 2000 Series - Silver Proof

One of a sprawling series issued to coincide with the Sydney Olympics, this piece is among the earlier Australian coins to use pad printing — a technique borrowed from industrial manufacturing that applies a separate ink layer directly onto the coin's surface rather than through die engraving. Perth Mint adopted it here to introduce color detail that striking alone could not achieve. The process was novel enough in 2000 that quality consistency across the mintage was a genuine technical concern, making ink adhesion and registration the primary variables separating better-preserved examples from degraded ones.