Australia’s 1930 Penny – Why Is It Our Most Popular Rare Coin?

I’ve met many non-collectors, as well as collectors from outside Australia, who can’t fathom just how this dull copper coin can be Australia’s most popular and well-known numismatic rarity. Most people believe that the 1930 penny first boomed in popularity during the heady days of the 1960s, as Australia switched to decimal currency and we were a nation of coin collectors.

The truth is that the standing of the 1930 penny was set in stone two decades earlier, during the closing months of the Second World War. 

For this project, I collated every printed reference I could locate on the 1930 penny into one location and built a timetable of the events that occurred. The results show why this coin remains highly prized nearly a century after it was struck.

The earliest printed reference to someone finding the 1930 penny out of circulation I’ve been able to locate is in an article by the South Australian numismatist for the South Australian Numismatic Journal in 1950. In that article, Syd Hagley stated that he obtained “…a specimen from the Adelaide Gallery Duplicates” about “fifteen years” earlier, which would date that transaction to around 1935.

In his history of the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), Peter Lane instead records that Hagley acquired his specimen 1930 penny from the AGSA in March 1941. 

While Hagley can be forgiven for not remembering the exact date he acquired his coin…