The Pocket Silver Challenge was a regular fixture of the Silver Gold Stackers in years gone by. I’d forgotten all about it until Old Mate @welshstacker reminded me in the community Discord this weekend. I wasn’t really involved in the challenge back then as my silver was all well capsuled and fairly pristine so I wasn’t up for potentially damaging it, nor was I that comfortable talking about precious metals with the general public. That’s changed a bit now so I was thinking about it and realised I had the perfect piece for the Pocket Silver Challenge.
It sounds pretty mundane to foreigners, but here in Australia we don’t really have a lot of “Junk Silver” like our brothers and sisters in the US or UK. Our history is relatively short and our population is largely clueless about when and why precious metals were included in coinage. However, there is a particular coin that stands out in recent Australian history and that is the 1966 Australian Round 50 Cent Piece.
This coin was minted in that year 1966 as Australia was shifting from Imperial to Decimal Currency. It was originally made of 80% Silver and 20% Copper. but it didn’t last long because as the coin was being minted the value of the Silver content exceeded the Fiat value of the coin itself. The public scooped it up. I hadn’t even been born but I know it was very popular at the time and most true Aussie stackers are aware of this rare little quirk in our coinage history. After 1966 the government modified the coin to the Dodecagonal shape and changed the composition to 75% Copper and 25% Nickel and this is the coin that is still used today.
All Australians would be familiar with the new 50 cent piece, but not the old 1966 one which weighs slightly less. At 13.28 grams with 80% silver it's worth over $11 Australian Dollars purely for the silver content today. It’s a very clear and obvious example of how inflation has trashed Fiat over the last 56 years but Silver has held its value. It’s also an excellent example of WHY silver makes such great money and WHY the government removed precious metals from our money, so it’s a great conversation starter here in Australia. Since my piece has already been in circulation and is a bit tarnished I’m not too concerned about preserving it. It’s also not super rare or valuable so I’m not worried about getting mugged in the car park for it either.