Rare new $1 coin with 'hidden code' for Aussies to crack: 'Really complex'
The Royal Australian Mint has dropped a brand new version of the $1 coin, and there's a hidden message for people to crack. The rare new coin commemorates the centenary of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals - who are responsible for the army's telecommunications systems.
To honour the amazing work done by this department over many decades, the Mint has chucked two codes onto this special coin. It harks back to how the army was able to communicate during times of war.
'Developing this coin was a really complex task – and there is also an interesting challenge for those who love puzzles and code-cracking," Royal Australian Mint acting Chief Executive Officer, Emily Martin, said.
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This new $1 coin features the Roman god of communication, Mercury, in the centre of the head side
Mercury is used in the Royal Signals Cap Badge, which is also known as the "Jimmy" badge.
Normally, Mercury stands tall on top of the globe for the badge, however, this new $1 coin shows its toes pointed right on Australia.
Behind the god's body, is a series of dashes and dots, which spell out a message in morse code, as well as ones and zeroes, which also contain a message in binary code.
These codes are meant to be "a visual link between the Corps' origins and its cutting-edge role in modern cyber warfare".The obverse of the coin features the effigy of His Majesty King Charles III.
Royal Australian Corps of Signals Head of Corps, Brigadier Deane Limmer, explained the history of his department to Mint artist Adam Ball, who had to sum up 100 years of important work in one image.
Brigadier Limmer was thrilled to see the history come to life.
'For 100 years, the men and women of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals have ensured that the Army remains connected, secure and ready for any challenge,' he said.
'As our currency has evolved from pounds and pence to dollars and cents, Army signals has gone from trench warfare to electronic warfare; from semaphore to satellites and cyberspace.
'This commemorative coin is a fitting tribute to their dedication, innovation and service and we are honoured by this recognition.'
There will be 50,000 of the coins minted, but they won't be put into circulation so you won't be able to find it in your change at the checkout.
They will be available for purchase from the Royal Australian Mint for $17.50.Sign in to access your portfolio
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Chicago Tribune
16 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
At this museum, no one will shush you, and you can touch the objects
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a day ago
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At this museum, no one will shush you, and you can touch the objects
LONDON (AP) — A museum is like an iceberg. Most of it is out of sight. Most big collections have only a fraction of their items on display, with the rest locked away in storage. But not at the new V&A East Storehouse, where London's Victoria and Albert Museum has opened up its storerooms for visitors to view — and in many cases touch — the items within. The 16,000-square-meter (170,000-square-foot) building, bigger than 30 basketball courts, holds more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 archives. Wandering its huge, three-story collections hall feels like a trip to IKEA, but with treasures at every turn. The V&A is Britain's national museum of design, performance and applied arts, and the storehouse holds aisle after aisle of open shelves lined with everything from ancient Egyptian shoes to Roman pottery, ancient Indian sculptures, Japanese armor, Modernist furniture, a Piaggio scooter and a brightly painted garbage can from the Glastonbury Festival. 'It's 5,000 years of creativity,' said Kate Parsons, the museum's director of collection care and access. It took more than a year, and 379 truckloads, to move the objects from the museum's former storage facility in west London to the new site. Get up close to objects In the museum's biggest innovation, anyone can book a one-on-one appointment with any object, from a Vivienne Westwood mohair sweater to a tiny Japanese netsuke figurine. Most of the items can even be handled, with exceptions for hazardous materials, such as Victorian wallpaper that contains arsenic. The Order an Object service offers 'a behind-the-scenes, very personal, close interaction' with the collection, Parsons said as she showed off one of the most requested items so far: a 1954 pink silk taffeta Balenciaga evening gown. Nearby in one of the study rooms were a Bob Mackie-designed military tunic worn by Elton John on his 1981 world tour and two silk kimonos laid out ready for a visit. Parsons said there has been 'a phenomenal response' from the public since the building opened at the end of May. Visitors have ranged from people seeking inspiration for their weddings to art students and 'someone last week who was using equipment to measure the thread count of an 1850 dress.' She says strangers who have come to view different objects often strike up conversations. 'It's just wonderful,' Parsons said. 'You never quite know. … We have this entirely new concept and of course we hope and we believe and we do audience research and we think that people are going to come. But until they actually did, and came through the doors, we didn't know.' A new cultural district The V&A's flagship museum in London's affluent South Kensington district, founded in the 1850s, is one of Britain's biggest tourist attractions. The Storehouse is across town in the Olympic Park, a post-industrial swath of east London that hosted the 2012 summer games. As part of post-Olympic regeneration, the area is now home to a new cultural quarter that includes arts and fashion colleges, a dance theater and another V&A branch, due to open next year. The Storehouse has hired dozens of young people recruited from the surrounding area, which includes some of London's most deprived districts. Designed by Diller, Scofidio and Renfro, the firm behind New York's High Line park, the building has space to show off objects too big to have been displayed very often before, including a 17th-century Mughal colonnade from India, a 1930s modernist office designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and a Pablo Picasso-designed stage curtain for a 1924 ballet, some 10 meters (more than 30 feet) high. Also on a monumental scale are large chunks of vanished buildings, including a gilded 15th-century ceiling from the Torrijos Palace in Spain and a slab of the concrete façade of Robin Hood Gardens, a demolished London housing estate. Not a hushed temple of art, this is a working facility. Conversation is encouraged and forklifts beep in the background. Workers are finishing the David Bowie Center, a home for the late London-born musician's archive of costumes, musical instruments, letters, lyrics and photos that is due to open at the Storehouse in September. Museums seek transparency One aim of the Storehouse is to expose the museum's inner workings, through displays delving into all aspects of the conservators' job – from the eternal battle against insects to the numbering system for museum contents — and a viewing gallery to watch staff at work. The increased openness comes as museums in the U.K. are under increasing scrutiny over the origins of their collections. They face pressure to return objects acquired in sometimes contested circumstances during the days of the British Empire Senior curator Georgia Haseldine said the V&A is adopting a policy of transparency, 'so that we can talk very openly about where things have come from, how they ended up in the V&A's collection, and also make sure that researchers, as well as local people and people visiting from all around the world, have free and equitable access to these objects. 'On average, museums have one to five percent of their collections on show,' she said. 'What we're doing here is saying, 'No, this whole collection belongs to all of us. This is a national collection and you should have access to it.' That is our fundamental principle.'
