One of the first scalloped coins I encountered.

This is my entry for Day 8 “H” of the Blogging from A-Z April Challenge!
H = Hong Kong.

This coin was also the #MysteryCoin at the end of my March 27 Newsletter. The newsletter comes out every fortnight featuring recent updates, news, highlights from others, and a mystery coin to guess. Sign up on the Newsletter page.

Obverse

The coin features the Arnold Machin portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. This portrait was used in many countries from the 1960s to the 1980s. Numista lists 1,206 coins from Machin from Zimbabwe in 1964 to The Bahamas in 2005. Australia issued a 2019-dated “Effigies over time” set featuring coins with different portraits of Elizabeth II. The 10 cent coin in the set was a re-issue of their 1966-2984 coin featuring the Machin portrait although the set was non circulating. This portrait was introduced to Hong Kong coins in 1975, which was also the first year of the two dollar coin. This effigy was used on the $2 until 1984, when it was changed to the Maklouf portrait, which features on many coins from different commonwealth countries as well.

Reverse

The obverse contains the country name, year and value, in both English and Hong Kong Chinese. In the center is a crowned lion rampant holding a pearl. This is the Crest of Coat of Arms of Colonial (British) Hong Kong.

The scalloped shape was used in Hong Kong on 20 cent and 2 dollar coins. From 1975 to 1998 for 20 cents, and to 2019 for the two dollar coin. 20 cent coins are Nickel-Brass and 19mm diameter. Two dollar coins are larger, 28mm and copper-nickel.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority states that “The Government issues coins of $10, $5, $2, $1, 50 cents, 20 cents and 10 cents” although there are no recent coins listed on Numista.

Personally, this was one of the early coins that got me interested in collecting. I had not seen a scalloped coin before this, although it is not the first scalloped coin. I was also struck by the value – two dollars made it seem very expensive to me as a child, although two hong kong dollars is only worth around 26 US Cents as I write this. It’s that fascination with coins which are different to what I use daily which got me interested in numismatics in the first place, and I still find it fascinating. What was one of the first coins which got you fascinated in collecting? Share in the comments!