Megaband AC/DC are celebrating 45 years of rocking with new coins from the Royal Australian Mint

Such luminaries as VH1, MTV, Rolling Stone, and the music buying public have consistently rated AC/DC one of the greatest music groups of all time. Selling more than 200 million albums over a forty-five year period is a phenomenal achievement for any rock and roll band. Formed in Sydney, Australia in 1973 by Malcolm and Angus Young, their first album was called High Voltage (commemorated on CIT’s AC/DC coin), and while they’ve had some ups and downs in popularity over the following decades, they have a huge following today and continue to record.

The band has certainly picked up some numismatic interest this year. Earlier in 2018 the European producer, CIT Coin Invest, launched a pair of silver coins, one for High Voltage, and one for the Black Ice album. Now the Royal Australian Mint (RAM) is getting in on the act (no pun intended…) with a pair of its own. The cheaper of the two is a twelve-sided copper-nickel effort, so not something we usually cover here, but the second fits in perfectly.

Triangle shaped, although heavily rounded to ape a guitar plectrum, the 22.23 gram silver coin is plated in nickel (yes, it has a Nickel back…). The black finish with yellow highlights looks good and AC/DC fans will recognise parts of the design from the High Voltage album. The packaging is very cool. The box looks like an amplifier and opens up to reveal a bright-red themed interior holding both the coin and an AC/DC guitar pick. The RAM has done a good job with this one, and while a 10,000 mintage seems healthy enough, it was allocated almost immediately and is now unavailable from the RAM webstore. Ditto the 30,000 mintage CuNi coin. Dealers like Downies have them for sale, however, but it looks like fans of the band shouldn’t delay too long if they want one.