When I have been collecting coins, I really prefer to be collecting really old ones... generally with silver content. The only non-silver coins that I have are really really old ones of some sort historical interest... or more recent ones that are either significant years (for me...), or are interesting designs. However, those come around through sheer luck... and all of them are circulating coins, so they are generally pretty worn and not that interesting to anyone other than myself.

However, I had read a couple weeks ago of an interesting 50 cent piece that was being released by the Australian Mint to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Australian Signals Directorate. This is sort of the Australian version of the United States NSA... the code-breakers and cryptography guys. Sadly, it didn't come in a silver version... and so, the only option was a limited run (50,000) Copper-Nickel version in uncirculated condition. I'm pretty nerdy, so this sort of theme was pretty interesting to me... and now that I live in the same city as the Australian Mint, I figured that it was not too expensive to just pick up a few of these out of pure interest! Of course, I would have really really really preferred a silver version... hint hint!

So, what was it that piqued my interest about this... other than the sheer nerdiness of a coin devoted to the hardest of nerd-core public service branches?

... well, the idea that there were hidden layers of codes embedded in the design of the coin! How cool is that? Now... I'm definitely sure that I've neither the patience or the skills to crack open the code... and I am definitely resisting the idea that I could just google it up now to discover the solutions. I'm curious if sometime in the future, one of my girls will be of a mind to try and discover the coded message hidden in these coins?

... and one more thing was quite interesting about these coins. Just after they were released... our figurehead, Queen Elizabeth the Second, passed away... so, these may very well be the LAST run of commemorative coins that feature her on the reverse side! Of course, given that these are just Copper-Nickel coins... it probably won't mean much at all, but it is an extra little bit of curiosity that is added to the code-breaker challenge!

Anyway, this was a nice little diversion for my coin collecting... I will have to start figuring out where to pick up silver pieces in Australia. I have noticed a few coin shops... but I'm sort of just a bit terrified to actually walk into a shop and browse around. Perhaps one of these days, I will muster up the courage to do it... but for the moment, I think I will be content to just have a look and search around online.

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