1967 is the first year of Malaysia’s own coinage: on 12 June Bank Negara Malaysia put the coins into circulation, and the new Malaysian dollar replaced the Malaya and British Borneo dollar at par. This 10 sen comes from that very first issue.

The coin shows the Parliament building in Kuala Lumpur, formally opened on 2 November 1963. The central bank explained the choice plainly: the design symbolises Malaysians’ faith in democracy. Beside it are the crescent, standing for Islam as the official religion, and the thirteen-pointed star for the states of the federation. The design is by British medallist Geoffrey Colley, whose initials «GC» appear on the coin.

Coins dated 1967 were struck by the Royal Mint in London in 1967–1968, about 106.7 million in all: the central bank’s own mint, Kilang Wang, only began operating in 1971. The same design stayed on Malaysian sen coins until 1988.

Grade VF-AU: wear ranges from noticeable on the raised parts of the relief to light rubbing on the high points, with all main details and legends clearly legible. For a Malaysia collection this is the opening year of the whole ringgit era.

If you collect coins by country or by theme, take a look at the VPcoins catalogue: it is a convenient place to find the neighbouring pieces of a series.