Australians are no strangers to the thrill of a lucky find—whether it's a rare stamp, a vintage wine bottle, or a collectable coin.

Even right now, you might have a small treasure tucked away in your wallet or coin jar!


A particular $1 coin could be worth up to a staggering $350 due to a quirky error.

The $1 Centenary of Federation coin was released in 2001 to mark the 100th anniversary of Australia's federation.

The coin boasted a map of Australia on one side and the regal image of Queen Elizabeth on the other.


While millions of these coins were minted, a select few had a unique characteristic that made them incredibly valuable.

Doug Mcrostie, the founder of Coinxchange, explained that some of these commemorative coins have 'rotation' errors.

This minting mishap occurs when the images on the head (obverse) and tail (reverse) sides of the coin are not correctly aligned.


'It's caused by the die rotating,' Mcrostie shared in an interview.

'What happened was there was a problem, and it was rotating during manufacturing. So they actually printed a whole bunch of different rotations, so it's not a specific 90 degrees.'

These rotation errors vary, with the misalignment described in terms of clock positions.

Some coins might show the Queen's head pointing towards 1 o'clock, others towards 3 o'clock, and so on, potentially all the way around the clock.

The Royal Australian Mint produced 27.9 million Federation coins, but the ones with the quirky error immediately caught collectors' eyes.


These error coins have different values depending on the condition.

'Circulated coins can be around a while, so that's the bottom of the range, sort of at the $50 mark,' Mcrostie said.

'Then, as they get better condition, you can get up to that sort of higher price point.'

However, there's no exact number of how many error coins were produced.

'There's an estimated several thousand out there, so it's probably more achievable than some of the other rare ones like the alien error and the wavy baseline,' Mcrostie added.


The most sought-after variety of these rotation error coins are the ones with Queen Elizabeth's image at a direct 180 or 190-degree angle.

Mcrostie also shared that he saw a collector who managed to acquire a set of 12 coins, each with a different hour on the clock.

Coin collector and content creator PJ's Coin Capers explained the error in one of his recent videos.

Watch it here:

The $1 Centenary of Federation coin is just one of the many rare coins that could fetch a small fortune.

Previous articles featured a rare 1991 10-cent coin with low mintage and a 2012 Red Poppy Coin, among others.

So, it might be time to dig through your coin collections, check under those couch cushions, and inspect your recent change.

You never know when you might find a coin that's a piece of history!
Have you had the chance to find rare coins among your change? Share your coin finds and stories with us in the comments section below!