NPA Throughout 1988 - Improvise, Adapt and Overcome

One of our favourite action movies as young fellas was Clint Eastwood's "Heartbreak Ridge". Mr Eastwood played a gnarly Marine drill instructor who had many lines of dialogue that really shouldn't see the light of day in an esteemed numismatic publication, but one that fits our article today is the Marine creed to "Improvise, Adapt and Overcome". It's unlikely Heartbreak Ridge was played in the NPA staff canteen on movie night, but the sentiment of that dialogue describes exactly how they survived the rigors of 1988.

Our Bicentennial year was a milestone for Note Printing Australia (NPA). Almost 22 years and $20 million in research and production costs helped make world numismatic history on January 27th 1988, when the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released 500,000 of the Bicentennial commemorative note into general circulation. Australia's Bicentennial ten dollar note is the first note of it's kind anywhere in the world.

No sooner had these world-beating notes entered circulation than news spread throughout sections of the community that the OVD could be fairly easily damaged by scraping it with a coin. Alarmed by the rather widespread extent of the public's somewhat impudent and daring interference with the OVD, the RBA quickly stopped issuing the commemorative $10. 

We might think that the entire resources of the RBA and NPA were solely devoted to the challenges of the Bicentennial note throughout 1988, and while it was clearly a priority, the relentless activity in the Australian economy meant demand for other circulating banknotes continued apace. The timing of this demand and the way the staff at NPA reacted to it actually resulted in several minor but meaningful differences in our circulating currency. Those minor differences have resulted in truly scarce paper decimal notes most collectors are simply unaware of.

Australia's Bicentennial Year - A Numismatic Timeline

The First Cab - Bicentennial Polymer Ten Dollar Note

The first numismatic activity in 1988 was the aforementioned release of the 1988 polymer ten dollar note into circulation on January 26th 1988. Demonic non-collectors brought that relase to a halt fairly quickly.

A Minor Change in Font Led to a Scarce Variety

Note printers will tell you that the font used in the serial numbers seen on our circulating notes needs to be practical as well as aesthetically pleasing. The first font used on Australia's banknotes from 1966 is known as the "Gothic" font, it is tall and relatively narrow. That font served its purpose well, but as computer scanning technology was increasingly adopted in the production process, NPA staff realised that a revision to the font would make scanning serial numbers much more reliable.

A second font was introduced to Australia's banknotes from 1978 - in comparison to the Gothic font, it is thicker, shorter and fatter. This font is known as OCR-B, a term much more frequently encountered by members of the general public now that PDF documents are ubiquitous. OCR stands for "optical character recognition".

All of the NPA's OCR-B serial numbering machinery was running at full capacity in 1988 when an "emergency" order of $20 notes was received. If they were to fill the order in a timely manner, NPA staff had no option but to dust off the old serial numbering machinery that printed the Gothic font - I say "dust it off" as by that time it hadn't been used for more than a decade!

Research by Mick Vort Ronald shows that a tiny run of paper $20 notes were printed with "Gothic" serial numbers in May 1988. Just how rare are these Johnston Fraser $20 notes with the Gothic serials compared to those that have the OCR-B serials? The ratio is around 14 to 1, they're one of the rarest standard paper decimal notes other than those printed with the Coombs Randall signatures.

The New 2 Dollar Coin Caused Demand to Surge for the Last Paper 2 Dollar Notes

In addition to the changes being made to our circulating notes, major changes were being made to our coins as well. The two dollar coin was first introduced on June 20th 1988. Planning for the two dollar coin started around the same time as it did for the one dollar coin that was introduced in 1984. While there was an appetite for rolls and proofs of the new 2 dollar coin, many members of the general public were keen to set aside some of the old paper 2 dollar notes before they disappeared from circulation forever.

The Blue 10 Dollar Folder Plus Emergency Issues of the $5 and $20 Were All Released in July 1988

The 500,000 ten dollar notes that were released into circulation in January 1988 all had a serial prefix that started with AB, yet NPA prepared a special run of 3 million notes that had an exclusive AA serial prefix as mementoes of the historic occasion. Each of these notes also the release date “26 JANUARY 1988” stamped on the front of them, they were each placed into a light blue presentation folder. 

These notes were held back until the initial production problems had been resolved, so weren't released until July 8th, 1988.

The blue folders weren't the only special release made that month - NPA also received another emergency order for paper $50 notes at the same time. Unlike each of the other paper denominations circulating at that time, the serial number font on the paper $50 note had stayed Gothic ever since the first $50 was introduced way back in 1973. The emergency print run of Johnston Fraser $50 notes released in July were the first Australian paper $50 notes with OCR-B serials.

Research by Mick Vort-Ronald quotes that in the same month, NPA printed a run of paper $5 notes with the Gothic serials on them - the first with this serial number type to be seen in a decade. Only about a quarter of the paper 5 dollar notes printed with the Johnston and Fraser signatures have Gothic serial numbers - they're an affordable memento of NPA's adaptability throughout 1988.

By the time the printing process for our polymer 10 dollar notes had been completely overhauled, the second print run of the Bicentennial $10 note was released into circulation on October 24th, 1988. Those notes also featured an AB serial prefix, but in order to make sure they could be differentiated from those released in January, they had a slightly different structure to the serial numbers.

Once those notes were into circulation, I expect the staff at NPA would have stopped holding their breath and had a spell. The next major change to our circulating banknotes was the introduction of the Phillips and Fraser signature combination in 1989.

One of the things that drives my curiosity in numismatics is a need to understand why a particular note or coin is scarce. When we review the activity at Fisherman's Bend throughout 1988, it's a wonder more numismatic rarities weren't released!