A range of coinage offences were covered under sections 246-270 of Victoria’s Criminal Law and Practice Statute 1864. The most common was producing counterfeit currency, which was punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment. This penalty remained unchanged nearly a century later under section 291 of Victoria’s Crimes Act 1958.

Some counterfeit operations involved sophisticated knowledge and technologies. However, others were simple affairs. A silver sixpence could easily masquerade as a gold half-sovereign just by changing the colour, as both had the same size and edges, and featured Queen Victoria on the obverse and a shield with the ensigns armorial of the United Kingdom on the reverse. If used in a busy cash business, such as a hotel or restaurant, the differences were often not noticed until later. An example of such a case from 1898 is described here.