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50 cents - Charles III 1st Portrait - Steam Giants - Tasmania Q Class Q5
| Issuer | Royal Australian Mint |
|---|---|
| Year | 2025 |
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| Composition | Copper-nickel (Pad Printed) |
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| Obverse description | Uncrowned effigy of King Charles III facing left, modelled by Dominic Taylor, with the King depicted in a suit and open collar. The peripheral legend reads CHARLES III to the upper left and AUSTRALIA 2025 to the upper right, with the denomination 50 CENTS inscribed along the lower rim. Two small dots flank the base of the bust, and the engraver's initials DT appear in the lower field to the right of the truncation. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A pad-printed coloured depiction of a Tasmanian Government Railways Q Class locomotive, number Q5, presented in profile facing right against a stylised background rendered in black, red, and grey tones evoking the industrial era of steam traction. The locomotive's cab, boiler, and driving wheels are rendered with fine detail characteristic of the Steam Giants commemorative series. The legend TAS and the alphanumeric identifier Q5 appear in the field, along with the numeral 5. |
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| Additional information |
The Q class locomotives entered service with Tasmanian Government Railways from 1955, built by Beyer, Peacock & Co. in Manchester — the same firm responsible for the Beyer-Garratt articulated designs that worked gruelling mountain grades across southern Africa and South America. Tasmania's isolated 1,067 mm gauge network made direct importation of mainland Australian motive power impractical, leaving the island's railways dependent on purpose-ordered British builds well into the diesel transition. Q5 was among the last steam locomotives to work regular revenue service on the island before withdrawal in the early 1970s.