Royal Australian Mint : Australia’s $2 Poppy Wreath – 80th Anniversary of WWII

The Royal Australian Mint issued 80 Years On: Remembering the Second World War 2025 $2 Coloured Circulated Coin – to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and honour the service and sacrifice of almost one million Australians who served during the conflict, including the 40,000 Australians who lost their lives. Released in 2025, the coin provides a lasting tribute to one of the most significant milestones in Australia’s history and encourages reflection on the legacy of those who served.

The reverse design features a remembrance wreath comprising eight coloured red poppies surrounded by sculpted leaves. The poppy an enduring symbol of remembrance recognised throughout Australia and the Commonwealth, each of the eight poppies represents one of the decades that passed since the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945. Together, these elements create a respectful and meaningful tribute that acknowledges both the passage of time and the continuing importance of remembrance.

Struck to the Royal Australian Mint’s circulating standard, the coin combines the familiarity of Australia’s circulating $2 denomination with a coloured commemorative reverse, allowing a nationally significant anniversary to be recognised through an everyday object that was collected, shared and preserved by Australians. The obverse features the effigy of His Majesty King Charles III, designed by Daniel Thorne.

The release makes this national commemoration accessible to collectors and the wider community alike. By combining symbolic design with a circulating denomination, the coin honours the service and sacrifice of the Second World War generation while ensuring the 80th anniversary of the end of the war is commemorated in a lasting and tangible way. At the Royal Australian Mint, we hope to put these important coins in pockets, wallets and purses of all Australians so that we have a reminder of the nation’s defining moments.

The Royal Australian Mint 2024 Dawn Service and 2025 Poppy Wreath $2 coloured circulating coins represents advancement in design and manufacture of circulating coins, demonstrating how traditional minting practices can be combined with innovative engineering to create products that are visually striking, highly durable and accessible to millions of people.

At the centre of this achievement is the Royal Australian Mint’s creative use of coin relief as an integrated print-protection mechanism. While colour has been incorporated into collectible coin programs for many years, applying it successfully to circulating coin present a much larger challenge as they must endure constant handling, friction and environmental exposure while retaining their design integrity over time.

To address the challenge, the Mint developed and innovative design methodology in which raised relief elements are strategically engineered to protect the printed areas on the zero field from wear and abrasion. Rather than solely functioning as an artistic feature, the relief on the designs become a structural component of the coin’s protective system, increasing longevity of the printed design.

This approach has delivered benefit beyond durability. The integration of relief and colour has expanded the creative possibilities available to designers, enabling greater visual contrast, depth and story-telling within the limitations of circulating coins. The result is a coin, that evolves in design from fully printed to deliberate partial printing unveiling a second version of the design gradually.

Through successful integration of artistry, engineering and advance production techniques, the Royal Australian Mint has established a new benchmark for innovation in circulating coin design.

This coin serves as a lasting tribute to their courage and resilience, and the enduring legacy they left for future generations.

The design features a symbolic wreath of eight vivid red poppies – each representing a decade that has passed since the end of the war. Interwoven with the poppies is a flowing purple ribbon, a colour long associated with mourning, dignity and reflection. Together, these elements offer a powerful visual reminder of the sacrifices made and the passage of time since that defining moment in history.

The foliage that forms the foundation for the poppies is inspired by native plants from around Australia that helps to ground the experience as a national commemoration. These features are colourless and form a background to the commemoration. Similarly, the centre of the coin is deliberately simple, it speaks to the loss that war can leave behind and makes sure that the viewers eye remains fixed on the commemorative symbols.

More than twenty years after the guns fell silent on the Western Front in November 1918, war again broke out on a global scale. This war, the Second World War, proved to be the deadliest in human history. Close to 40,000 Australians lost their lives, and with the bombing of Darwin in February 1942, the Australian mainland came under attack for the first time.

On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland set the Second World War into motion. Two days later, Australian Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies followed Britain’s lead and declared that Australia was at war with Germany. The war had come to Australia. In the First World War the Australia fought to establish identity and do its bit for Empire, during the Second World War the battle became about defending her allies and then for her own survival.

Almost one million Australians served in the Second World War of a population of just seven million. Joining the war effort primarily in the Mediterranean and the Middle East in 1940 and 1941, and increasingly in the Pacific after Japan entered the war in December 1941. A huge portion of the young fit population took up arms, but the whole nation would mobilise. Women served in branches of the Army, Navy and Air Force established in 1941, civilians worked to help the war effort in industry and in the home.

By the time the war came to an end in September 1945, close to 40,000 Australians had lost their lives in the course of their service. The war would change our place in the world, impact our allies and shift our cultural influences for decades to come. One of the most multicultural nations in the world, much of our early immigration was a direct result of the war.