Description:

Exceedingly rare if not Unique

    Notes:
  • This coin was once owned by Dr. W.J.D. Mira an acknowledged expert on Australian Holey Dollars and Dumps. His published work "The Holey Dollars of New South Wales - A Pictorial Record of Known Surviving Specimens" is regarded as the standard reference work for the series. In 1974 Mira re-classified the dumps into four distinct types after studying '150 attributable specimens'. The four obverse and reverse dies that he identified, and their pairings, have been adopted as the standard descriptors of the four known circulating types. In his 1977 publication 'A Classification of the "New South Wales Dumps"' he wrote that 'a further 100 dumps have been classified directly, and 50 by correspondence. No specimen has been found which varies from those proposed in 1974 and this typing system is now utilized by many cataloguers, both within Australia and overseas.' To date the combinations of obverse and reverse dies that resulted in the A1 (approximately 70% of surviving examples), D2 (25%), E3 (3%) and C4 (2%) still covers all known circulating dumps, although there is strong justification for the recognition of an A5 Type which exhibits significant serifying on the reverse letters and is evidence of a re-cut or altered die. Mira records in his own collection copper dumps struck on the D2 and E3 dies which mirror the silver strikings, so it is conclusive that copper trials were undertaken by William Henshall at the Factory to 'test the machine(ry)' before the silver dumps were produced. This coin ex Mira is probably the only surviving example of an 'E3' Dump struck on a silvered copper planchet. The inference is that it was dipped in silver to give an idea of how the circulating coins would look when they were stamped out on the centre plugs of silver Spanish 8 Reales. An important and extremely rare part of Australia's colonial numismatic history.It is worth noting that in 2007 a copper trial of a Holey Dollar also struck on an English Cartwheel Penny sold for $233,000.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
A$0 A$99 A$10
A$100 A$999 A$20
A$1,000 A$4,999 A$50
A$5,000 A$9,999 A$100
A$10,000 + A$250