An eight-year-old Melbourne boy has minted the world’s first coin of 2026.<\/p>\n
Julius Jungerth’s number was drawn from a barrel at the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra, beating out several hundred others on New Year’s morning.<\/p>\n
He is not a coin collector and only found out about the opportunity while on a family holiday visit to the Mint on New Year’s Eve.<\/p>\n
“He convinced us to wake up early in the morning to try for the first coin,” his father, Frans Jungerth said.<\/p>\n
“I’m very surprised \u2014 I can’t believe he actually won it.”<\/p>\n
Julius said the experience was “really fun” and he planned to keep the coin in its box on his bedside table.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A random ballot decides the first 100 people to press a coin at the start of each year. (ABC News: Lily Nothling)<\/p>\n
Altogether, 100 people were chosen at random to press the first 100 coins of the year, with each one presented in a box with a statement of authenticity.<\/p>\n
Because of Australia’s geographical location, they were the first coins minted anywhere in the world this year.<\/p>\n
Big day on the coin collecting calendar<\/p>\n
Royal Australian Mint CEO Emily Martin says January 1 is always a significant day for coin collectors. (ABC News: Lily Nothling)<\/p>\n
“It’s a very exciting day on the coin collecting calendar,” the Mint’s chief executive Emily Martin said.<\/p>\n
“In 2026 we are celebrating 60 years of decimal currency in Australia and this beautiful coin depicts that.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The first coin minted in 2026. (ABC News: Lily Nothling)<\/p>\n
The coin features the animals from Stuart Devlin’s original 1966 coin designs, including the frilled-neck lizard, echidna, lyrebird, platypus, emu, kangaroo, feathertail glider and the Southern Cross.<\/p>\n
Despite the first 100 recipients being selected at random, some dedicated coin enthusiasts began gathering outside the Mint with their camp chairs in the early hours of the morning.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Todd O’Rourke was in the queue outside the Mint in Canberra since before 3am on New Year’s Day but was unsuccessful in the ballot. (ABC News: Lily Nothling)<\/p>\n
Todd O’Rourke comes from five generations of coin collectors and started queuing at 2:45am.<\/p>\n
“Just the chance and potentially the experience of minting that very first coin of the year in the world would be very cool,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Everyone wants number one, right?<\/p>\n
“Today’s release is special not just from a collecting point of view, but also catching up with fellow collectors and socialising with other people in the queue.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A crowd of people gathered outside the Royal Australian Mint in the early hours of New Year’s Day hoping to win the chance to mint one of the world’s first coins. (ABC News: Lily Nothling)<\/p>\n
While Mr O’Rourke’s name was not drawn in the ballot, one family \u2014 including an almost 10-month-old baby \u2014 managed to walk away with their hands full.<\/p>\n
“Out of the first 100 coins, we scored three of them,” Robert Tucker said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Keen coin collector Robert Tucker walked away with three of the first 100 coins minted in 2026. (ABC News: Lily Nothling)<\/p>\n
“I come here most years so it is rather special, and it’s good to spend it with my boy for the first time.<\/p>\n
“I’ll naturally have [these coins] for years and end up giving them all to him one day.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An eight-year-old Melbourne boy has minted the world’s first coin of 2026. Julius Jungerth’s number was drawn from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[10968,2666,64,63,99,2667,88155,206465,206464,206463,203521,206462],"class_list":["post-383996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-10968","tag-act","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-canberra","tag-coin","tag-coin-collectors","tag-first-coin","tag-julius-jungerth","tag-mint","tag-royal-australian-mint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}