Australasian Tokens and Coins
Holey Dollars and Dumps
The reasons for the introduction of the Ring or Holey Dollars and Dumps have been already discussed, and we have here to consider the details connected with their issue, their currency, and the varieties hitherto recognised. The sloop-of-war Samarang arrived in Port Jackson on 26th November, 1812 (Hist. Rec., Vol. 9, p. 859), with dollars valued at £10,000, which had been brought from Madras by the Government. On 5th December they were conveyed to Government House and there examined and counted by a committee consisting of William Broughton, Acting Commissary; H. C. Antill, Major of Brigade; and Thomas Archer, Acting Deputy Commissary. By direction of Governor Macquarie, these dollars were cut and restamped by William Henshall, making “ Holey Dollars and Dumps." In one of Macquarie's despatches (Hist. Rec., Vol. 7, p. 722) he mentions that the “ machine for stamping, miliing, and cutting out the centre was made in the colony. It failed more than once, but after many failures and trials ultimately succeeded." In a despatch, dated 28th June, 1813, Macquarie writes :
Will commence cutting and stamping in a few days, and the man engaged promises to have the whole cut, stamped, and milled in less than three months.
The Historical Records, Vol. 9, p. 884, give a report of the deposition taken before Judge Bent, a Judge of the Supreme Court, and made by William Henshall when protesting against his arrest and punishment without trial for a trivial offence, as follows :
All the colony can speak to my character, and that I was trusted by the Government from time to time with near to 40,000 dollars, and both made the tools to cut them and had above 1,000 dollars in my possession at a time.
Henshall was a whitesmith and silversmith by trade, and there is some doubt about his real name. In early records he first appears under the name of John Hersell, a little later as John Henshall, and both in Macquarie's despatch and in the deposition taken before Judge Bent he is shown as William Henshall. At Commissioner Bigge's inquiry Mr. D. Wentworth stated that :
He was generally employed, but much suspected of coining dumps was employed to cut out the dumps from the dollars.
No trace of the dies used has been found, but it is known that they were cut by Henshall, and included among the tools he mentions having made in his deposition. Mr. William Dixson has in his possession a letter written many years ago by a Mr. E. Stillworthy, of Wagga Wagga, which mentions that the punch used to cut the piece out of the dollars was made by a Mr. Harry Richardson, a well-known first-class workman of Sydney. Mr. Stillworthy states that his information was obtained first hand, when he was himself employed by Richardson, in 1844. This punch later came into the possession of Mr. Parkin, previously referred to as an assistant of Thernthwaite. Also the press used, which he describes as a very primitive affair of the hand lever type. There is reason to believe that the process of stamping was assisted by the heating of the pieces.
Mr. Parkin expressed the opinion that the inscriptions were struck on the ring dollar and dump by means of a drop-hammer or ordinary sledge. This would account for the irregularity of the relative positions of the obverse and reverse, and the appearance of greater pressure on one portion of the inscription than on other, which is so noticeable in all these pieces. Referring again to the Historical Records, we find, in Vol. 7, p. 830 :
The piece cut out of the centre of the dollar was known as a dump. The whole surface was cleaned and restamped. The general surface of the ring was not cleaned Several distinct varieties of the coins are extant, but it is not known whether these varieties were made officially or by persons desirous of appropriating the increased value, amounting to 25 per cent.
The principal differences in the dollars are the presence or absence of what has been described as a dagger or trefoil leaf, but quite as much resembles an attempt at showing a fleur-de-lis, and the varied distance between the words FIVE and SHILLINGS. On the dumps the size of the Crown varies, also the position of the legend NEW SOUTH WALES on the obverse, and the words FIFTEEN PENCE on the reverse.
Macquarie's Proclamation fixed the 30th September, 1813, as the date on which the dollars and dumps should be issued, but from evidence given before Commissioner Bigge it is shown that after being made they remained in the Governor's possession till the Deputy Commissary General David Allan demanded them early in 1814. His official receipt shows that he received them as follows :
| Jan. 25th, 1814 | 3,000 | £937 | 10 | 0 |
| Feb. 10th, 1814 | 3,000 | £937 | 10 | 0 |
| Feb. 23rd, 1814 | 3,000 | £937 | 10 | 0 |
| Feb. 24th, 1814 | 3,000 | £937 | 10 | 0 |
| Mar. 4th, 1814 | 6,000 | £1,875 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar. 10th, 1814 | 3,000 | £937 | 10 | 0 |
| Mar. 16th, 1814 | 6,000 | £1,875 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar. 23rd, 1814 | 3,000 | £937 | 10 | 0 |
| Mar. 24th, 1814 | 3,000 | £937 | 10 | 0 |
| Ap. 15th, 1814 | 3,908¾ | £1,221 | 9 | 8¼ |
| Aug. 2nd, 1814 | 3,000 | £937 | 10 | 0 |
| 39,908¾ | £12,471 | 9 | 8¼ |
|---|
Mr. Allan gives the figures as the number of dollars received and recoined in this Country and delivered to me at Six Shillings and Threepence each..
In a despatch dated 23rd April, 1814, Macquarie states that the greater part were in circulation.During the currency of these pieces the value of the Spanish dollar seems to have fluctuated between 4s. 6d. and 58. 6d., but never reached the fictitious value placed on its parts in this country. In 1823, when they were recalled, the doliar was worth 4s. uid. in England.
Genuine ring or holey dollars are known which have been struck from Spanish pieces of the reigns of Carolus III, Carolus IV, and Ferdinand VII, and of the follow- ing dates : 1783, 1786, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800, 1803, 1804, 1805, 1808, 1809, and 1810. Probably coins of other years were used, but to the present have not been listed. They are all more or less buckled from the process of punching, to assist which process it is said that they were first heated.
The inscriptions have been added, regardless of their falling either on the obverse or reverse of the original.
The Sydney Guzette of 2nd January, 1819, mentions the discovery of forged bank notes for five shillings and counterfeits of the Spanish ring dollars. On the 5th May, the same year, the Secretary of the Bank of New South Wales advertised that “ Counterfeit dollars and dumps were in circulation," and gave particulars by which the counterfeits could be detected, as follows :
- Dollars and dumps that are not silver.
- Dollars having the holes in the centre, but without the Colonial stamp upon them.
- Colonial dollars from which a portion of the silver has been removed round the centre (filed or clipped), whereby the hole is made considerably larger.
- Dollars bearing a counterfeit stamp intended to imitate the Colonial one surrounding the hole in the centre. Many of these may be detected by the figures of the date being transposed from 1813 to 3181.
Dr. Roth mentions having seen a ring dollar inade from one of Ferdinand VII, minted in 1813, without any date to the Colonial stamp. As the reverse of the Colonial stamp of this particular coin also differs from any of the other ring dollars examined, he inclines to the opinion that it is one of the forgeries alluded to in Class 4 by the Secretary of the Bank of New South Wales.
For nine years the ring dollars and dumps were current at their marked value, and in 1822 Governor Brisbane decided to remove their enhanced value, first from the ring dollar, which had never been more than tolerated by the Colonists.
The official returns of the Bank of New South Wales from time to time show at least a tendency for these pieces to get into few hands rather than circulate freely In a report dated 19th July, 1820, the specie held by the bank consisted of :
| £ | s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16,680 Colonial dollars | 4,170 | 0 | 0 |
| 7,000 Spanish dɔllars | 1,750 | 0 | 0 |
| 5,900 dumps at 1s. 3d. | 368 | 15 | 0 |
| Coppers | 12 | 9 | 5 |
By Proclamation, dated 25th July, the Governor ordered that the Commissary General should receive such as were in circulation at the marked value for a period of six weeks after the publication of the Proclamation in Sydney and Hobart. was gazetted in Sydney on 10th August.
The dumps were dealt with by another Proclamation on 15th November, when notice was given that after six weeks they would be received only as a fourth part of a Spanish dollar.
In spite of these notices, that after the end of the year the fictitious value of these pieces would end, and any accepted would only be at the current value of the Spanish piece, and also that they would no longer be legal tender, they are known to have been in circulation as late as 1829. An extract from the Sydney Gazette of 21st November, 1829, has the following :
We understand the pierced dollars, with their children the dumps, now safely lodged in the Military Chest, amount to about £5,000 sterling. What is their destination has not yet transpired, but we believe the pierced gentlemen are not to be permitted to resume their travels in the Colony.
About 25,000 dollars would be accounted for in this account. There is no record of any issue, except that in the year 1813, and it is highly probable that many of those returned to the Government at the time of the issue of the Proclamations were melted down or otherwise disposed of by the authorities, so that the number now accounted for would probably include all but a small fraction of these struck.
At the present day specimens are much sought after, and are very scarce, a piece in good order fetching as much as £7 or £8 among collectors.
Holey Dollars
701
* A Spanish dollar of CAROLUS IIII, date 1805. Pl. 55.
- Obverse. The centre has been removed and the inner edge roughly milled. The words NEW SOUTH WALES round the inner rim above and 1813 at the bottom. The words NEW and SOUTH are closer together than SOUTH and WALES and the date 1813 is about equidistant between N and S.
- Reverse. FIVE SHILLINGS round within the inner rim above, with a double spray of olive at the bottom. At the junction of the two sprays a diamond-shaped dot. Each spray has six leaves, the first on the right being above the stalk and the first on the left below. The letter F is 10 nim. from the end of the spray, and the letter S on the right 7 mm. The words FIVE and SHILLINGS are 6 mm. apart.
702
* A Spanish dollar of CAROLUS IIII, date 1803. Pl. 55.
- Obverse. As No. 701.
- Reverse. Has the words FIVE and SHILLINGS much further apart, nearly 12 mm., and between them a small ornament representing probably a dagger or a fleur de-lis. The distance from the ornament to the S on the right is 4 mm., while between it and the E of FIVE is 8 mm. The spray has six leaves on each portion, and the first leaves are both above the stalks.
703
A Spanish dollar. As before, with centre removed.
- Obverse. As No. 702.
- Reverse. As No. 701, but the words FIVE and SHILLINGS are closer, being only 5 mm. apart.
704
A Spanish dollar of FERDINAND VII, date 1810.
- Obverse. As No. 701.
- Reverse. As No. 702.
705
A Spanish dollar of CHARLES IV, date 1804.
- Obverse. As No. 702.
- Reverse. As No. 703.
Dumps
709
* A piece 19 mm. in diameter cut from a Spanish dollar. Pl. 55.
- Obverse. A crown in the centre, NEW SOUTH WALES round above, 1813 below. A line along the base of the crown cuts the letter N on the left and right near the top of S.
- Reverse. FIFTEEN / PENCE in two lines straight across field. A square stop between the lines.
710
* A similar piece, 19 mm. in diameter, date 1813. Pl. 55.
- Obverse. Has a smaller crown, and stops between the words. The base line continued would pass below N and cut the middle of E on the right. This piece shows remains of previous striking.
- Reverse. There is no stop between the lines, and the word PENCE is slightly shorter.
711
Similar, 19 mm., date 1813. Pl. 55.
- Obverse. Has a bolder crown, stops between words, and the base line is level with the bottom of N and S.
- Reverse. As No. 709, but lines slightly wider apart.
712
Similar but larger, 20 mm., date 1813. Pl. 55.
- Obverse. No stops between words, base line cuts middle of N and top of S. Crown slightly smaller.
- Reverse. As No. 709.
713
Similar, but 19 mm., date 1813. Pl. 55.
- Obverse. A larger crown, 9 mm. across, no stops between words, base line above N and S. Double struck.
- Reverse. Upset. Stop between lines, which are closer together.
714
* Similar, 18 mm., date 1813. Pl. 55.
- Obverse. A smaller and more compact crown, which is only 7½ mm. wide, the cross slopes left. The base line cuts the bottom of N and below S.
- Reverse. Has a stop between lines, which are still closer together. PENCE in bolder letters and FIFTEEN slightly smaller.
715
Similar, but 20 mm., date 1813.
- Obverse. No stops between words, base line top of S and middle of N.
- Reverse. No stops between lines, PENCE only 11 mm. long. Pl. 55.
