Pocket change, with marsupials!

• To commemorate ANZAC Day (it's already the 25th Down Under),
• to celebrate the return of my sweetie,
• and to fill some blogspace,

I'm sharing some Australian coins brought back by Susan.

From left to right:

• All show HM the Queen on the obverse ("heads") side.
• On the reverse ("tails") side, the 50-cent piece features an heraldic kangaroo and emu, smaller but easier to pick out on the older coin at top.
• The 20-cent piece has a lovely swimming platypus.
• Five kangaroos grace the 1-dollar coin.
• Finally, the 2-dollar coin depicts a bearded Aboriginal man, which I suppose makes it roughly the equivalent of a turn-of-the-last-century Indian-head penny or the somewhat later Indian-head/buffalo nickel here in the States.

My favourites here are the 20-cent platypus and 1-dollar kangaroos. They remind me of Canada's lovely coins, with their beautiful loons, caribou, beavers and maple leaves. It's a shame we don't have more (and more realistic) wildlife on U.S. coins and currency. A few of the state quarters have decent wildlife images, but otherwise the only realistic image in wide circulation is the flying bald eagle on the reverse of the Sacagawea 1-dollar coin.