50 Cents - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait - Centenary of Australian Banknotes - 1 Pound

Australia's first Commonwealth banknotes entered circulation in 1913, replacing the notes of private trading banks under the newly established Australian Notes Act — a deliberate assertion of federal financial control that proved contentious with the banking sector for decades. The specific denomination commemorated here, the one pound note, was the workhorse of that inaugural issue, designed by an American bank-note company and printed in Melbourne under considerable public scrutiny.

Copper-nickel 50-cent pieces of this commemorative type were struck in large numbers for general circulation, which keeps acquisition costs modest.