1887 Queen Victoria Jubliee Coin Savings Bank Ballarat

This is not a coin, it is a medal/token, and it is damaged by the hole someone put in it..

It is indeed a medal . It has not been damaged by the hole, as that is how they were made. I will look it up in the Carlisle medal catalogue when I get home from work, if no-one else has.

As for the spelling of "Ballarat" with the double-A, this was normal at the time; the original farmers who settled the area where the city is now, named their homestead "Ballaarat", with the double-A; no-one really seems to know the origin of the name (some say it's Aboriginal, some Gaelic-derived). It can be found with both the single-A and double-A spellings. Though the Railway and the Post Office both adopted the single-A spelling from the beginning, The City Council did not formally adopt the single-A spelling until 1996; the pre-amalgamation City of Ballaarat held that name from 1855 to 1994; the surrounding Shire of Ballarat had the other spelling.

Sorry, I forgot about this one until just now.

The medal is listed in the Carlisle book as number C1887/73, with an original mintage of 1000 pieces. It does not say who commissioned them or why, but it seems logical the Ballaarat Savings Bank ordered them and gave them out to customers as a souvenir of the queen's golden jubilee. Records kept by the manufacturer, Stokes and Martin, indicate the order of 1000 medals cost £9/5/-.

As to rarity and value, while Victoria Golden Jubilee pieces are generally quite common, this one is slightly scarcer than average and is listed at Au$40 in the 2008 price guide (the most recent one produced).