Not So G'Day, Mate~ Australia's A$50 note misspells responsibility

Whoops! Australia printed 46 million banknotes with a typo

Someone might not have taken the "responsibility" of spell checking too seriously



Australian $50 note

quote:

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Compared with other mistakes, the typos are almost certain to secure Australia a spot in the hall of fame of currency blunders that reach back far in history.

When the Bank of Canada started printing bank notes bearing the likeness of Queen Elizabeth II about seven decades ago, for instance, the institution received numerous complaints from readers who believed they had spotted a devil in her hair. In subsequent editions, the queen’s hair was reworked to look less like a portrait from hell.

The queen also caused a currency dispute in Australia once. Amid a debate over the monarchy’s official status and influence in Australia, the government made a U-turn in the 1960s, after proposing to rename the Australian dollar “the royal.” Previous ideas that were skipped reportedly included “the dinkum” and “the boomer.”

While Australia averted disaster, the Philippines faced irreversible embarrassment in 2005, when it was realized that new bank notes misspelled the name of then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

On the notes, her last name was spelled “Arrovo.”

The notes, authorities said at the time, were still valid, and, in fact, they quickly became coveted by collectors.

That is less likely in the case of Australia’s erroneous 50-dollar bills, given that there are more notes in circulation than the country of almost 25 million has citizens. Its central bank has announced that the misspelled notes already in circulation will eventually be replaced — even though that might take some time.

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