ALREADY passed through innumerable sets of hands, one of Australia's first coins has been sold to a new owner for close to half a million dollars.

A Melbourne-based collector bought one of the 300 remaining holey dollars for $485,000, a record price for this type of coin.The purchase comes almost 200 years after the British government bought 40,000 Spanish silver dollars to solve a currency shortage in its fledgling penal colony, trading on crudely drawn bills and rum.

A hole was then punched through the centre to devalue and localise the coins to ensure they weren't smuggled out of Australia.Belinda Downie, managing director of rare currency dealer, Coinworks, who sold the holey dollar last month, said the coin had probably travelled the world before arriving in Australia around 1813.

It was originally minted in Spain in 1789, an era in which the silver dollar was regarded as the key international currency.

Most holey dollars were returned to Britain to be melted down and sold as silver bullion as they were phased out of circulation.

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