The Hannibal Head Holey Dollar, created from a Spanish Silver Dollar struck in 1810 at the Lima Mint in Peru featuring the imaginary portrait of the Spanish monarch

Coming in February 2025

Original Spanish Silver Dollar: About Extremely Fine. Counter stamps: Extremely Fine.

Spink Auctions March 1988, lot 1045

Discovered in Tasmania in 1881, near Hobart, in what was believed to be a bushranger’s hoard, this ‘Hannibal Head’ Holey Dollar was subsequently presented to Sir John Henry Lefroy, Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, 1880 – 1881. The coin’s discovery was written up in several newspapers published in the early 1880s, the Hobart Mercury (1883) and the Sydney Morning Herald (1884). A pencil drawing of this ‘Hannibal Head’ Holey Dollar published in 1883 in the Numismatic Chronicle, London, is the earliest known illustration of Australia’s very first coin.