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Mints and Mint Marks - Sydney Mint

Author: Ian Davis - Chief Operations Officer

Published: 26 May 2017

Last Updated: 24 Dec 2022

Synopsis

The Sydney branch mint in Australia issued sovereigns for The Royal Mint between 1855 and 1926.

Since 1855, gold sovereigns were struck at overseas branch mints, in addition to The Royal Mint in London. The first branch mint to strike sovereigns was Sydney, Australia in 1855.

If you are interested in the Sydney mintmarks you can discover more in our blog Mints and Mint Marks

Mint Marks

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

Mint Mintmark First Last
London None 1817 1975
Sydney S 1871 1926
Melbourne M 1872 1931
Perth P 1899 1931
Ottawa C 1908 1919
Bombay I 1918 1918
Pretoria SA 1923 1932

Mintmarks
On shield sovereigns, the mintmarks are to be found on the reverse, in the space below the tie of the wreath.
On young head sovereigns with St. George and dragon reverse, the mintmarks are on the obverse, below the head.
On all other sovereigns, Victoria jubilee head, old head, Edward VII and George V, the mintmark can be found on the ground above the centre of the date. 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 1924 Sydney Mint sovereign, and a close-up of the date and mintmark, and an 1885 shield, again with a close-up.

Sydney Mint, Australia
The Sydney Mint in Australia was the first of the branch mints to strike gold sovereigns, starting production in 1871, and continuing until 1926.
Many of these are scarce, some rare or extremely rare.

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

Full List of Sovereigns Minted in Sydney

Date Mintage
Shield
1871 2,814,400*
1872 1,815,000*
1873 1,478,000*
1875 2,122,000*
1877 1,590,000*
1878 1,259,000*
1879 1,366,000*
1880 1,459,000*
1881 1,360,000*
1882 1,298,000*
1883 1,108,000*
1884 1,595,000*
1885 1,486,000*
1886 1,667,000*
1887 1,000,000*
Young Head St George
1871 See Shields
1872 See Shields
1873 See Shields
1874 1,899,000
1875 See Shields
1876 1,613,000
1877 See Shields
1878 See Shields
1879 See Shields
1880 See Shields
1881 See Shields
1882 See Shields
1883 See Shields
1884 See Shields
1885 See Shields
1886 See Shields
1887 See Shields
Jubilee
1887 1,002,000
1888 2,187,000
1889 3,262,000
1890 2,808,000
1891 2,596,000
1892 3,837,000
1893 1,498,000
Old Head
1893 1,346,000
1894 3,067,000
1895 2,758,000
1896 2,544,000
1897 2,532,000
1898 2,548,000
1899 3,259,000
1900 3,586,000
1901 3,012,000
Edward VII
1902 2,813,000
1903 2,806,000
1904 2,986,000
1905 2,778,000
1906 2,792,000
1907 2,539,000
1908 2,017,000
1909 2,057,000
1910 2,135,000
George V
1911 2,519,000
1912 2,227,000
1913 2,249,000
1914 1,774,000
1915 1,346,000
1916 1,242,000
1917 1,666,000
1918 3,716,000
1919 1,835,000
1920 360,000
1921 839,000
1922 578,000
1923 416,000
1924 394,000
1925 5,632,000
1926 1,031,050
Total 116,704,050

Notes
* = Includes St. George Type

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.

For Sale

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

More Information

You can browse all of our information articles by following the links below:

Click here to learn more about branch mints

Related Blog Articles

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