Numismatics: Australia: Pennies

Pennies

To speed up the loading of this page I have moved the pictures of the obverse and reverse master die types to their own, separate pages. That does mean you have to go through an extra link to get to that information but I hope this arrangement is more useful.

Contents

Overview
Obverse master die varieties (separate page)
Reverse master die varieties (separate page)
Die pairings
Catalogue by date

Overview of the Australian pennies, 1911-1964

Pennies were minted each year from 1911 until 1964 with the exception of 1937 and 1954. The 1937 penny exists as a uniface pattern and as a two-sided pattern but I have not seen the two-sided coin.

It is fairly common knowledge that George V pennies were made in two slightly different diameters. It is easy enough to verify; just run your fingers down a stack of them. I have not investigated this in any detail but I did a count on a pile of 1922 pennies. I set a vernier caliper so as to make a go-nogo gauge and found that the larger diameter coins comprised roughly 60% (88 out of 157) of the pennies with the London obverse and about 75% (27 out of 34) of coins with the Calcutta obverse. A systematic investigation of this might yield some interesting insights.

As a series, the pennies are numismatically very interesting. Nine obverse and nine reverse master dies were used to strike the coins and there are often different combinations of dies used within a single year.

The seminal work on penny die varieties is probably the article "Australian Penny Varieties: A New Classification Scheme" by Paul Holland in the 1993 edition of the Journal of the Australian Numismatic Society. This presentation draws heavily from that article.

Master die pairings

The table below is taken directly from Paul Holland's articles. All I have done is modify the die designators to be non-repeating so blame Paul for any errors.

**Master die pairings for Australian pennies, 1911-1964**
Year	Obv	Rev	Mint	Variety	Rarity	Notes
1911	1	A	"		Common
1912	1	B	"		Common
1913	1	B	"		Common
1914	1	B	"		Common
1915	1	B	"		Common
	1	B	Heaton		Common	H mint mark
1916	2	C	Calcutta		Common	I mint mark
1917	2	C	"		Common	"
1918	2	C	"		Common	"
1919	1	B	Melbourne	No dot	Common	Date varieties exist
	1	B	"	Dot below bottom scroll	Common	Date varieties exist
	1	B	"	Double dot	Rare
1920	1	C	Melbourne		Rare
	1	C	Melbourne	Dot below bottom scroll	Rare
	1	C	Sydney	Dot above bottom scroll	Ext. Rare	2 specimens known
	2	C	Melb & Syd		Common
	2	C	Melbourne	Dot below bottom scroll	Common
	2	C	"	Double dot	Rare
	2	C	Sydney	Dot above bottom scroll	Scarce
	2	C	Melbourne	Dot above top scroll	Rare
1921	1	B	Melbourne		Rare
	2	B	Melb & Perth		Common
1922	1	B	Melbourne		Common
	2	B	Perth		Scarce	20%
1923	1	A	Melbourne		Common
1924	1	A	Melb & Syd		Common
	1	A	"	Filled 4	Common	Broken/worn die
	2	A	Sydney		Rare
1925	1	A	Melbourne		Scarce	Low mintage
1926	1	A	"		Common
1927	1	A	"		Common
	2	A	"		Rare
1928	1	A	"		Common
1929	1	A	"		Common
	2	A	"		Common
1930	1	A	"		Ext. Rare	About 1500 specimens
	2	A	"		Ext. Rare	in existence now
1931	1	A	"	Final 1 misaligned	Common
	1	B	"		Common
	2	A	"	Final 1 misaligned	Ext. Rare	Much rarer than 1930
	2	B	"		Rare	Not as rare as 2A
1932	1	B	"		Common
1933	1	B	"		Common
	1	B	"	1933/2 overdate	Scarce
1934	1	B	"		Common
1935	1	B	"		Common
1936	1	B	"		Common
1937	3	D	London		-	Patterns only
1938	3	D	Melbourne		Common
1939	3	D	"		Common
1940	3	D	Melbourne		Common
	3	D	Perth		Common	K.G mint mark
1941	3	D	Melbourne		Common
	3	D	Perth		Common	K.G
	3	D	"		Common	Y. mint mark
1942	3	D	"		Common	Y.
	4	E	Bombay	I and .PENNY.	Common
	4	E	"	.PENNY.	Scarce
1943	3	D	Melbourne		Common
	3	D	Perth		Common	Y.
	4	E	Bombay	I and .PENNY.	Scarce	Long denticles
	4	F	"	I and .PENNY.	Common	Short denticles
1944	3	D	Melbourne		Common
	3	D	Perth		Common	Y.
1945	3	D	"		Common	Y.
1946	3	D	Melbourne		Scarce
1947	3	D	"		Common
	3	D	Perth		Common	Y.
1948	3	D	Melbourne		Common
	3	D	Perth		Common	Y.
1949	5	D	Melbourne		Common
1950	5	D	"		Common
	5	D	Perth		Common	Y.
1951	5	D	Melbourne		Common
	5	D	Perth		Common	Y.
	5	G	London		Common	PL
1952	5	D	Melbourne		Common
	5	D	Perth	Several date varieties	Common	A.
	5	G	"		Common	A.
1953	6	D	Melbourne		Common
	6	H	"		Rare	Sans-serif 5
	7	G	Perth		Common	A.
1954				No coins minted
1955	8	H	Melbourne		Common
	8	G	Perth	5 5	Common	Y.
	8	G	Perth	55	Common	Y.
	9	G	Perth	5 5	Rare	Y.
1956	8	H	Melbourne		Common
	8	I	Perth		Common	Y.
	9	I	"		Common	Y.
1957	9	G	"	5 7	Scarce	Y.
	9	I	"	57	Common	Y.
1958	8	H	Melbourne		Common
	9	I	Perth		Common	Y.
1959	8	H	Melbourne		Common
	9	I	Perth		Common	Y.
1960	9	I	"		Common	Y.
1961	9	I	"		Common	Y.
1962	9	I	"		Common	Y.
1963	9	I	"		Common	Y.
1964	8	D	Melbourne		Common
	9	I	Perth		Common	Y.

**Catalogue by date**
1911	1912	1913	1914	1915	1916
1917	1918	1919	1920	1921	1922
1923	1924	1925	1926	1927	1928
1929	1930	1931	1932	1933	1934
1935	1936	1938	1939	1940	1941
1942	1943	1944	1945	1946	1947
1948	1949	1950	1951	1952	1953
1955	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960
1961	1962	1963	1964

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