Dollar Decade

The 1994 Dollar was struck to commemorate ten years since the introduction of the one dollar coin in 1984. It features the one dollar note and the mob of roos one dollar coin on the reverse with 1984 across the top and 1994 across the bottom. The obverse features the standard Raphael Maklouf portrait of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The coin was not issued for circulation but rather only issued as part of the mint your own dollar series showing the C, S, or M mintmarks for Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne respectively. An additional 25,003 silver proofs were struck which do not bear a mintmark.

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The Australian pound came into being in 1910 and lasted until 1966. The currency was awkward, with each pound being subdivided into 20 shillings each of 12 pence. In the 1950's the economic importance of switching to a decimal currency became heavily discussed. The key argument was that the pound made financial transactions unnecessarily difficult, it was calculated that this difficulty caused the loss of more than £11 million to the Australian economy every year. After much political debate the 14th of February 1966 was chosen as Changeover Day - when the new Australian decimal dollar took over.