From the Archives, 1964: Holt pleads with Australians to stop hoarding pennies
July 1, 2020 — 11.10am
First published in The Age on July 3, 1964
PENNY SHORTAGES BLAMED ON HOARDERS
"Mistaken Hope of Decimal Profit"
Many people were hoarding pennies in the mistaken belief that they would be revalued as one cent – 1.2 pence – after the change to decimal currency, the Treasurer (Mr. Holt) said yesterday.
The Melbourne Mint, 1906. Credit:State Library of Victoria
People were also putting away large numbers of pennies and half-pennies in drawers, bottles and other strange places because they were inconvenient to carry in pockets and purses.
Mr. Holt appealed to those with large supplies of pennies to put them back into circulation.
He said many people who were keeping pennies until the change to decimal currency were hoping to gain a profit of 20 per cent.
The Government, however, would not revalue the penny of half-penny following the introduction of decimal currency.
After the changeover, all Australian banks would be doing their accounting in decimal currency and would accept and pay out three-pennies, pennies and half-pennies only in the multiples of sixpence – the equivalent of five cents.
An Australian penny. Credit:The Age Archives
Other businesses handling large volumes of cash would adopt a similar practice.
Heavy Minting
The Treasurer said that 65 million pennies had been issued in the first six months of this year, compared with only 37 million in 1963.
The exceptional public demand for pennies was seriously interfering with the planned production of new decimal coins.
Since 1960, existing coins had been minted at a rate considerably in excess of normal current demand,
On previous trends, sufficient number of each coin would have been stockpiled by the middle of this year to last until February, 1966.
Mr. Holt said it was originally hoped that Melbourne and Perth mints would begin producing decimal coins in the second half of this year – all three mints would do nothing but produce decimal coins until the changeover date.
It would be absurd for the decimal currency minting programme to be held up while the Melbourne and Perth mints continued full-capacity production of pennies which the public found inconvenient to carry around and preferred to throw into drawers, Mr. Holt said.