Activity 2: Early Australian money
A long time ago traders and explorers from other countries came to Australia bringing coins from their countries. Using coins from different countries was difficult so Australia began to make its own coins.
Australian Governor Lachlan Macquarie got silver coins from Spain and cut the middle out to make two coins for Australia: the holey dollar and the dump.
Later, paper banknotes were introduced.
Why were banknotes introduced?
Why do you think we need banknotes? Consider the following situations:
- carrying lots of coins
- paying for expensive things with coins
- giving change in large quantities.
Play a game of Exchange it
You can play this game using exchange it (NOTEBOOK 1MB) or board game ( PDF 200KB).