This came attached to a sterling silver watch-chain as a center drop-fob. The chain was retailed by a local jewelry store. Story goes that one of the original owners drilled a hole through the top of the coin to wear it for decoration. But other than that, it all seems to check out. The coin: You can see the hole just next to the "VII". The chain it was attached to. The name of the jeweler's shop is stamped on the T-bar.
Close-ups of the chain. "DUNKLING" refers to Dunkling's Jewellers, a jewellery and watchmaking house that used to exist here in Melbourne back around the late 1800s up to the mid-1900s. "STG" for sterling. There's another mark (not photographed, because it was too hard) that reads "S.S." for 'sterling silver'. And on top of that, all the individual links are also marked. Dunklings Jeweller's back in the 1800s in Melbourne... Dunklings was run by William Dunkling, and his brother George. They were goldsmiths and silversmiths (William) and watchmaker (George).
The Piece of Eight was Australia's first official currency, so it's not too hard to imagine. Hundreds of thousands of them were shipped over in the early 1800s. Almost all of them were punched, stamped and re-marked for use in the Australian colonies back in the 1810s. Then in the 30s I think it was, the system was abolished. Left over coins were either hoarded away as souvenirs and keepsakes, or else, were simply melted down for the silver scrap. the silver melt was then sent back to England where it was remade into shillings, pence and crowns...and then shipped all the way back to Australia again! Today, the Australian "Holey Dollar" (Piece of Eight with a hole punched in it) is EXTREMELY rare. Only 300 are known to exist. Last year, one of them sold for something like $300,000. And another one for $500,000. Holey Dollar and 'Dump' (silver that was punched out of the coin) together: The dollar itself is rare enough. The dumps (the smaller coins made from the bigger coins) are rarer still. I think less than 100 of those exist today.
Here it is (bottom) with the rest of my collection... The dates are: 1779 (bottom right), 1783 (middle), 1790 (top right), 1802 (top left), 1819 (bottom), and 1820 (bottom left).
The Piece of Eight has a fascinating history. That's why I like collecting them. I got my first one about two years ago at a local coin-shop. I went in searching for something else entirely (which they did not have), and I was about to leave when I got into a conversation with the storekeeper. During the course of our conversation, I casually asked him - jokingly - "Do you have any pieces of eight?" I'd never actually held one before this time and had only the vaguest idea of their history. To my surprise, he goes: "Actually yes I do!" He turns around, opens a side cabinet and pulls out the coin in its plastic sleeve. "I held it back for another customer but he appears to have dropped off the face of the earth. If you want it, you can have it?" We haggled a bit and I bought it. That was the 1802 one. Then about a year after that, I bought the 1779, 1790 and 1820 coins from another coin-dealer at my local flea-market. They were going absolutely dirt-cheap. I was so suspicious I pulled them out of their packets to weigh them first. They all came in within the recognised weight-limit (26-27.07g) and so I bought them. The 1783 and the most recent one, 1819, I bought from another guy who deals in antique coins and silverware. At one point, he had an 1820 one, but since I already had one of those, I passed it up. I didn't need duplicate coins.
