A circulating coin starts with a design that includes the front (obverse), the back (reverse) and the edge treatment, which adds texture or a pattern to the thin strip between the two sides of the coin. These elements all contribute to the identity of the coin.
Read more about each coin's specifications and designs
Since 1967, all our circulating coins have featured the portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the front and New Zealand imagery – designed by James Berry on the back.
To press a design onto coins, we use a stamp called a die. An engraving machine cuts the design into a master punch, which is used to produce working dies. Each die can produce around 500,000 coins.
The master punch always has a positive image so a negative of the design can be transferred to the working die. This allows the coin to be struck with a positive, recognisable image.
Cutting coin-shaped pieces from sheets of metal is known as blanking.
To make a coin blank, metals like copper, nickel, and zinc are melted and analyzed to make sure they have the right composition. The molten metal is cooled, cast into strips, and wound into coils.
These coils are fed into a blanking press to punch out coin-shaped discs, and then placed in a rimming machine to create raised edges. This stops the blanks from sticking together, making them easier to stack and protects their surface.
Striking means adding the coin’s design to each side of the blank using dies. Blanks are loaded into a container (known as a hopper) and fed into a rotating plate. Each blank is held in place by a collar.
With one strike of up to 150 tonnes of pressure from above and below, the obverse and reverse (or heads and tails) and the edge details are stamped onto the blank, turning it into a coin.
Coining presses can strike hundreds of coins per minute. An operator regularly inspects coins for quality and changes the dies so each coin is consistent. Approved coins are then packaged and shipped to our vaults.
