so hello and welcome back to umadi coins and banknotes and
this is in response to a question that i have got about the passing away of queen elizabeth ii
so the actual question is are our coins still valid and this not only applies to australia
this applies to any countries use the effigy of queen elizabeth the second so the uk cook
islands here we have some bermuda coins yes they issue their own coins new zealand and australia
oh and also i'll use cyprus as another example so ah our coins still valid with queen elizabeth the
second well basically yes as far as i know there is no legislation saying when queen elizabeth
dies away dies our currency becomes invalid and i don't think that's ever been the case
although i have heard in well read in the past where uh coins have been demonetized and they have
been uh issuing new coins now a lot of that time that is because they wanted to
reduce the silver content of the actual coins uh but basically not much else very rarely do they
demonetize coins based on political circumstance like
if it's an enemy's coin maybe they might demonetize it or they might just
accept it at face value melt it down and issue new coins uh it's more likely what it's going to
happen but there are some examples of coins that have been demonetized but these are not because
uh of the change of the monarch so the most popular one we have and this applies to all old uk
coins you see one pound from the united kingdom so the reason why these have been demonetized
is because of a counterfeiting problem they issued a new one-pound coin a bi-metal one
and they demonetize these because it's just way too many counterfeits as you can see it's just
a single metal coin uh and these are actually quite easy to counterfeit like the australian
two little coin very easy so that's one reason why they demonetize coins because they change uh the
actual coin shape or design so they've done this also with the cook islands so cook islands coins
when add circulation uh pretty much in the 90s and they they probably were around up into 2016
when new zealand changed the shape of their coins because the cook islands do use new zealand coins
so he's in new zealand 20 cent he's a current cook islands 20 cent yeah but to get some signage
so some uh some value from the issuance of coins golems in 2015 issued their own coins
and all the older coins so the large 20 cent coin from the cook islands were demonetized
these are only collectors items now you can't spend them the only ones that illegal
tenderness coins are the 2015 coins and that goes for every denomination even the two dollar
denomination in which they didn't change the show or the size but they did change the metal
so there's a copper nickel one now it's aluminium bronze and that was uh demonetized
as well more than likely this was demonetized just to uh just to get some value out of uh
the coins that were never returned so it's another way that they demonetize coins
so any coins that are still left in people's hands no longer become legal
tender but it's still on the books and the government actually gets a profit from that
okay and we also have new zealand so new zealand did demonetize their older large
coins from so one cent to 50 cent the old series issued in 1967 we demonetized
new 10 20 and 50 of this smaller series are current so that's why new zealand demonetized
they're all coins because they changed the size and withdrew them from circulation
now some countries don't demonetize the coins so australia this is what we're talking about
so here i have some shillings so this shilling after the death of george v in 1936
this would have still been used up into 1966 because it's still legal tender and it can still
be used now so these coins are still legal tender in australia so i could use this for 10 cents
even though the silver value of this coin is about five to six dollars and the 1946
one is about uh three to four dollars depending on the day so there is a wide circumference but
you're going to spend this 10 cents ah no because with silver values quite a lot higher than
the face value and the same with the queen elizabeth so if you went to i know back in time to
the 1950s you probably would have had these three coins in circulation at the same time but i'd say
that these ones especially in this condition would have been withdrawn from any bank it was deposited
and uh probably would have become scarcer because the mintage of these is lower miniature queen
unless elizabeth in the 50s and 60s quite a lot higher than georgia fifth uh george six
had a similar mintage to queen elizabeth ii uh it also does depend on year so this is alignment coin
even though it's george the sixth uh but then you got ever coins from
uh 1950 so this is a pretty much a high mint coin and it worth that whatever it is value is
in silver but the moral story is that even though these two monarchs died he died in 1926 he died in
1952 the coins are still legal tender up to 1966 and they are still legal tender now so these have
never been demonetised in australia unlike the uk which has demonetized your pre-decimal coins
so these coins here they're still going to be labeled tender
even if in australia if they change the size of the 10 20 50 cent coin or get rid of
the five cent coin uh this still gonna be legal tender and you can take it to the bank like the
one and two cent coin which i have a few here you can still take these to the bank and get
their face value worth and deposit it into your bank account so you've got a hundred
dollars for two cent coins you can take them to the bank get a hundred dollars worth of
value so those um still legal tender even though people probably won't accept them as change
so basically that is what is going to happen to our currency and even though the united kingdom
does demonetize its coins when it changes this shape not the design these coins with
elizabeth ii so this is the two pound and they're going to be legal tender and two
they decide that they want to alter the two pound coin like the one pound coin and
bermuda bermuda's the same so they issue coins in the 1970 and all these coins are still legal
tender although they don't really issue a 50 cent anymore like the united states but still
legal tender and bermuda for 50 cent these are equivalent to u.s currency this shape the weight
the metals will be different they're all just copper nickel instead of copper nickel clad copper
but united states currency is exchangeable for one to one in bermuda you can't spend bermuda coins in
the united states so basically that is the state of play of the current coins with elizabeth ii now
will any of them be demonetised in the future well i don't know but i'm safe to say is that until
the government decides that they will demonetize coins all coins issued by the australian
government since 1910 as well as banknotes since 1913 still legal tender so you can still spend it
although a lot of them especially the pre-decimal stuff is worth more than its actual face value
so i hope this helps with uh questions that people have been asking and that was i'll say it again
are coins with elizabeth ii still legal tinder basically in all countries that they are used yes
they are thank you very much i hope you have an awesome coin and banknote collecting time and uh
just be careful what you read and who you talk to out there thank you and goodbye