A HALF SOVEREIGN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 April 1939, Page 2

A HALF SOVEREIGN

HANDED IN AT RICCARTON.

FIRST SEEN FOR MANY YEARS. Members of the totalisator staff at Riccarton were surprised one day during the last meeting to be offered a shining half-sovereign in payment for a 10s ticket on a horse. Some who had been officials of the totalisator • for years had difficulty in remembering the last occasion on which a gold coin had been handled there. The half-sovereign was handed to one of the women ticket-sellers. She took it to the “bank”—the office where all the cash received in bets is handed in, and then passed on to the pay-out clerks as required —asking, “Can 1 take this for a I,os ticket?” It was accepted. In the “bank” were two bank officials. They inspected the half-sovereign with great interest, and declared that they themselves had not seen one -for years. One official who has worked on the totalisator for many years was asked about it, and he said that if was so long since the totalisator had last handled a gold coin that he could hardly remember the occasion. Half-sovereigns and sovereigns are scarce and in certain quarters are worth far more than their face value' A bank manager in the city, told about the coin accepted by the totalisator staff, eagerly asked if he could get any. Certainly the half-sovereign was legal tender, he said. Over the counter of a bank it was worth only its face value, and since the coins had gone out of issue, once the bank received a halfsovereign it became a “prisoner” and could not be re-issued. But the gold in the sovereign was worth so much that dealers in coins, and others using gold commercially, had placed a value of approximately 16s on a half-sovereign.