026 $2 Dawn Service - Lest We Forget  'C' Mintmark Coloured UNC Coin on Card

Mintage 100,000

This $2 Coloured coin features the sun rising over the ocean along with the Australian Coat of Arms and a soldier reflecting with head bowed for  the minute silence of 'Lest We Forget'.

Each year on 25 April, Australians gather at dawn to remember those who served and sacrificed. This coloured $2 coin commemorates the Dawn Service—an enduring ritual of reflection held across Australia and at key sites overseas, including Gallipoli. In 2020 and 2021, when public services were restricted, many observed the dawn from their driveways, reaffirming the place this tradition holds in our national memory.

A typical dawn service includes a commemorative address, laying of wreaths playing of military bugle calls, and a one or two minute period of silence. Some services also include the mounting of a catafalque party, an armed guard of four personnel which attends to a catafalque (traditionally a platform containing a coffin, but it may be represented by a shrine.) The traditional bugle calls are "last Post' and 'Reveille' which are played before and after the period of silence respectively.