Since 1871, British sovereigns were struck at branch mints, in addition to the Royal Mint in London.
The first branch mint to strike sovereigns was Sydney in Australia. It made good sense to produce British sovereigns close to the gold mining source areas, rather than ship the gold to London to be made into coin, then possibly ship it back again.
In 1872, the Melbourne mint followed.
The Perth, Australia mint started production of sovereigns in 1899, the Ottawa mint in Canada started in 1908.
The Bombay mint in India struck sovereigns in just one year, 1918, and the Pretoria mint in South Africa started production in 1923, and continued until 1932.

Mintmarks
The mintmarks used by the various mints are as follows:-

Mint	Mintmark
London	None
Sydney	S
Melbourne	M
Perth	P
Ottawa	C
Bombay	I
Pretoria	SA

The mintmarks are to be found on the ground above the centre of the date, at least for the Edward VII and George V sovereigns. Many collectors find the mintmarks very difficult to find at their first attempt, but it really is quite easy once you know where to look. It helps of course to use a magnifying glass!
Our photographs show a 1928 Pretoria Mint sovereign, one from 1929, both show the mintmarks clearly We have selected these two years as the designs changed between the two dates. The entire reverse has been re-engraved, as has the obverse.

Pretoria Mint, South Africa
The Canadian Mint at Pretoria only struck gold sovereigns for ten years between 1908 and 1919.
All of these are scarce, some rare, and two of the dates are extremely rare.
The Pretoria mint was set up to coin the gold, which had only recently been discovered in British Columbia and the Yukon, into gold sovereigns. It opened on January 2nd 1908, and this was the first date of British gold sovereign to be minted in South Africa, although it is one of the two extremely rare dates.
Naturally the mint produced other coins in silver and base metal, the first coin struck at the Canadian Mint was a fifty cent piece. The mint still operates today, and is known as The Royal Canadian Mint. It was made a Crown Corporation on April 1st 1969.

Dates Produced
Melbourne Mint sovereigns were produced in the following years:-

Date	Mintage
1923	406
1924	2,660
1925	6,086,624
1926	11,107,611
1927	16,379,704
1928	18,235,057
1929	12,024,107
1930	10,027,756
1931	8,511,792
1931	1,066,680
Total	83,442,397

Rarity
The rarity of each date is not quite in proportion to the mintage figures. Many are thought to have been melted down, some dates being affected more than others. The 1923 is undoubedtly the rarest as its mintage figure would indicate, making it also a very rare date of sovereign, and the 1924 is also rare.

For Sale
Rather than duplicate our listing of sovereigns for sale, we include the Melbourne Mint sovereigns which we have for sale on their appropriate pages, being :-

• 1923 to 1932 George V sovereigns for sale.

More About Branch Mints