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The shilling, informally called a "bob", was a type of silver coinage issued by the Commonwealth of Australia, that circulated prior to the decimalisation of Australian coinage.
Spanish dollars were sometimes cut into "pieces of eight", quarters, and then into 2/3 and 1/3 segments, with the 2/3 segments (1/6 of original coin) being "shillings" and the 1/3 segments (1/12 of original coin) "sixpences" [1] In 1791 Governor Phillip of New South Wales fixed the value of the Spanish dollar to equal five shillings.
The combined nominal value in NSW of the holey dollar and the dump was 6s 3d (6 shillings, 3 pence), or 25 per cent more than the value of a Spanish dollar; this made it unprofitable to export the coins from the colony. The project to convert the 40,000 Spanish coins took over a year to complete.
Australian currency was originally based on British pounds, shillings and pence. That changed in 1966, when the country converted to Australian dollars and cents, similar to the U.S. system.
When Australia was part of the fixed-exchange sterling area, the exchange rate of the Australian dollar was fixed to the pound sterling at a rate of A$1 = 8 U.K. shillings (A$2.50 = UK£1). In 1967, Australia effectively left the sterling area, when the pound sterling was devalued against the US dollar and the Australian dollar did not follow.
A year later Australian pennies and half-pennies entered circulation. Unlike in New Zealand, there was no half-crown. In 1931 gold sovereigns stopped being minted in Australia. A crown or five-shilling coin was minted in 1937 and 1938. Coinage of the Australian pound was replaced by decimalised coins of the Australian dollar on 14 February 1966 ...
Slang terms for money often derive from the appearance and features of banknotes or coins, their values, historical associations or the units of currency concerned. Within a language community, some of the slang terms vary in social, ethnic, economic, and geographic strata but others have become the dominant way of referring to the currency and are regarded as mainstream, acceptable language ...
One confusing matter is that five shillings prior to decimal currency was called a "Dollar", in reference to the Spanish Dollar and "Holey Dollar" which circulated at a value of five shillings, but the Australian Dollar at the introduction of decimal currency was fixed at 10 shillings.