Two Types Of Coin At Same Time

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30471, 19 June 1964, Page 16

Two Types Of Coin At Same Time

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 18.

All existing coins would continue to circulate after July 11, 1967, when decimal coinage is introduced, Mr R. D. Muldoon, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Finance, said in a statement.

“By 1967, however, halfcrowns will be uncommon, since they will be withdrawn from circulation from a date yet to be specified, in 1965,” he said. Mr Muldoon said pennies, halfpennies and threepenny pieces would still be available to conduct transactions in shops where sterling cash registers were operating. “The existing 3d piece will continue to circulate as a direct equivalent for two cents and a half and will be usable in parking meters, stamp vending machines and similar coin-operated machines as at present until these are converted. “It is not intended, however, to mint a two and a half cent coin.” Mr Muldoon said the position of the halfpenny was not, yet clear but the Government would make a final decision as soon as current investiga-

tions being conducted by the Decimal Currency Board were completed. Present Government thinking was that the halfpenny would be retained as a half cent, Mr Muldoon said. Mr Muldoon said the decimal coins would be of one, two, five, 10, 20, and 50 cents with a half cent if this would still be required by 1967.