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When a “peckish” Perth man popped into a petrol station for a bottle of water and a chicken and vegetable pie, he was handed $9 in change, but quickly noticed it was worth much more.
The $2 coin in the palm of Joel Kandiah’s hand, which can fetch up to $110, was enough to stop him in his tracks — but Kandiah said rare coin discoveries are becoming ever rarer, now that cash transactions are disappearing.
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“The servo does gourmet pies, and I was a bit peckish, so I thought I’d just go in a grab one. I just went through my normal process, and made the transaction,” Kandiah, the numismatist behind The History of Money, told 7NEWS.com.au.
“Then I turned around, looked at my coins, and just stood there. I just thought, you have got to be kidding me.”
“I looked at it, and kept shaking my head. It was just this rare moment of joy.”
Kandiah told 7NEWS.com.au that it had been more than 10 years since he organically found a coin like this in his change, and noted that a slowing circulation of cash in the digital age meant it was becoming harder to collect coins at face value.
“It’s very unlikely to find one in your change, but it’s still a great moment when you do find it — it’s insane.”
Just under one million units of the purple-coloured $2 coin were minted to celebrate the Queen’s Coronation 60th anniversary in 2013, and Kandiah remembers picking up a few when they started appearing.
It’s worth about $40 in its worst condition, and about $110 in its best condition, according to Kandiah.
In the 13 years between 2007 and 2022, Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michele Bullock reported that cash transactions fell 70 per cent — now just 13 per cent of all transactions in Australia involve cash.
“The coins and the banknotes that we have, now last a lot longer than they used to — if there’s less cash turning over, then the ability for someone to find a rare coin becomes a lot harder,” Kandiah said.
Kandiah has been collecting coins for 29 years, since he was five years old, and he said the growing challenge of finding coins at face value isn’t just because of a slow turnover.
In addition to the growing challenges of chancing upon rare coins, “noodling” — what the coin community calls the withdrawal of coins from a bank or change machine to sort through, one-by-one — is also becoming more difficult.
“I’ve gone through $50,000 to $60,000 worth of coins (noodling) in the last few years,” Kandiah said, adding that banks are now “clamping down” on the activity.
“For example, Commonwealth Bank has now restricted their change machines to business customers only,” he said.
“Banks are reluctant to do it, but if you give a bank enough time and put in an order, they’re usually more than happy to.”
Cash ‘rule of thumb’
The coin lover urged his History of Money audience to continue paying with cash to keep rare coins in circulation, but noted that not all of his transactions are made with cash.
“The majority of my payments are still on card because I like to play the frequent flyer game, but as a coin collector, my rule of thumb is that if there is a transaction under $50 I’ll always use cash.”
He said supermarkets, petrol stations, and places where there is still a high turnover of cash — rather than the small businesses increasingly transitioning away from cash for various reasons — are the best places to chance upon rare coins.
Kandiah still vividly remembers the discovery of the most valuable coin he ever discovered in his change at a store.
It was a $1 coin from the year 2000 with a printing error that left it with a double rim on the heads-side of the coin, worth $350 in its worst condition and up to $4000 in mint condition, he said.
“(I found) that one was when I was 18, so 16 years ago, and that was from my change at Kmart.”