The Microscopist's Mate, part 4 of many

Just for the record, all of what you find here, and in the other blogs in this series, is now available in fuller detail in my e-book Looking at Small Things.  Go to this link to find out more about how to get the free low-resolution copy, or the cheap high-resolution version: I'm a professional writer, so I like selling books, but I'm also a professional educator, so I like sharing ideas.

There's a similar free or cheap deal on offer for my Playwiths ebook as well, and to see what else I have been doing (LOTS!), go to this link.

Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

This time, we are looking at coins and notes. Under magnification, most coins show scratches, most notes show fine engraving. Take a close look at this coin, which any Australian will recognise.

A reader who looks at any of my science-related books will be familiar with the coin as well, because I use the Australian 50-cent coin as a standard scale. The coin is 32 mm from side to side, and my reasoning is that in my lifetime, this coin is likely to remain in circulation.

That is why the 50-cent coin appears all over the place here, with redback spiders crawling over it, or lying beside a fossil or a rock. (See here, for redbacks and coins.)

Puzzle your friends

Now take a look at this image on the left: do you recognise it? I came across it, and even though it was a shot I had taken with the Go Micro device, I had to check where it came from.


Find this part on a 50-cent coin and take your own photo: see if your friends know what it is. Or of you prefer, choose some other coin and try it out.

Coin details

Then try some of the other Australian coins, and here, you need a couple of new words: the side of the coin that we call “heads” is actually the obverse to coin collectors, while the “tails” side is the reverse. You also need to know that the details are easier to see on a shiny new coin.

Can you find the initials of Stuart Devlin who designed the reverse of the 5, 10, 20 and 50 cent coins? Can you find two (or more?) different sets of initials for the different designers of the head of Queen Elizabeth II on our coins? Can you work out when the design changed?

No, I don’t know who those people are: see if you can find out. I only know of two, but look at some older coins, once you know where to look.

Over time, coins get scratched, and obviously older coins are more scratched, on average. But out of our “gold” coins and our “silver” coins, which ones seem to be more scratched?
 

Looking at notes

Here are three images taken with the Go Micro from the new Australian $5 note: would you recognise any of them? The third one might be a give-away, but the others aren’t that easy.

   
Now here are five Go Micro shots of parts of the new Australian $10 note: once again, the last one is the give-away.

   
If you can find an old Australian penny, KG was George Kruger Grey (not “kangaroo”, as I used to think).

HP who designed King George VI (pre-1953) was Herbert Paget.

Guess who was quite a keen numismatist, back in those days?

Ah, yes, I said it would be green slime, didn't I?
Well, the cultures are still maturing... i will get there, one of these days.