Sunday, July 05, 2009

Holey Moley.....

Some time ago I signed up for a year long season of lessons with Dale Rollerson of The Thread Studio and today the first thought provoking lesson has arrived. This is real distance learning and one of the joys of the internet. The course if labelled the Holey Moley Club and is a sort of a mystery tour as Dale is keeping the elements close but not suprisingly the first lesson is about holes. Now from the little work I have done so far I can see that I could become a bore (hole?..Sorry!) about holes. Just thinking where you find them, lace, cheese,old clothes, stones, and so on is fascinating and of course, I had to google and came across the The Holey Dollar and here one of those fascinating little stories I love and how appropriate that it should be Australian. Briefly in 1813 to overcome a currency shortage (nothing changes) the governor bought Spanish silver dollars and turned them into two coins by cutting a hole in the middle,the coin with the hole was the Holey Dollar and the cut out piece a separate coin known as the Dump..result double the coins in circulation. Clever trick eh!

Photograph Numisnet World Any problem with copyright please advise and image will be removed.
Back to work....

1 comment:

LaKaribane said...

Small world, isn't it? We had a similar situation here in Haïti...and around the same time.

I've seen a 1776 8 reales coin (Spanish), pierced in 1811 to make "change".

Is it the island thing or a consequence of the general turmoil of the times?