Gold Coins "Never" made at The Perth Mint
Colin & Vanessa Kynoch
The Author of the article is The Perth Mint's archivist Anthea Harris
Anthea Harris joined Gold Corporation in 1996 as a Records Consultant and developed a passionate history in The Perth Mint’s history while cataloguing thousands of archival files dating from 1899. Born in London, Anthea and her husband, Robert, moved to Australia in 1971. She has an Honours degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Lancaster in England and a Graduate Diploma in Library Studies from Curtin University of Technology in Perth. Anthea writes a regular column - “From The Perth Mint Archives” - in the Perth Mint’s publication, Australian Numismatic Post, which is syndicated through coin magazines in Australia and overseas.
I hope you enjoy the article as much as I did
Colin Kynoch
Despite dedicated record-keeping during the early years of The Perth Mint, the occasional gold coin bearing the "P" mintmark has come to light with no record of its production
Perth Mint coin Production from 1899 to 1969 was recorded in successive annual reports to the British Royal Mint, during which period the Mint was a branch of the Royal Mint.
Unfortunately, throughout this period, the Mint did not keep samples of its own coin production, which would have been a invaluable reference source.
record-keeping for coinage dies, however, was fastidious: special correspondence files were created to record the receipt of dies from the Royal Mint. Die Registers kept track of which machine the die was used on, how many blanks were struck and why the die was taken out of service.
All corresponding dates, including the date of destruction of the die were recorded. However, the early Die Registers have not been found, so the use of some of the early dies may never been known.
The Perth Mint was established to convert Western Australian gold into sovereigns. Correspondence from the Royal Mint indicates that it sent 24 obverse and 24 reverse sovereign dies to Perth in february 1898. The letters do not clarify whether the dies were dated 1898 or 1899. As the building was not finished until November 1898 and not opened until 20 June 1899, any 1898 dies would not have been used for sovereign production. The Perth Mint's Chief Clerk and Accountant, Frank Ernest Allum, realised that half-sovereigns would inevitably be needed for local circulation and on 25 August 1898 he ordered 4 pairs of half-sovereign dies, as well as another 12 pairs of sovereign dies for the year 1899.
The first official production of Perth Mint half-sovereigns was recorded in 1900. However, Renniks Australian Coin and Banknote Values, lists a Perth Mint 1899 half-sovereign as Australia's rarest coin. This coin has been held in a private collection since the 1940's and was sold privately in the early 1990's for $A150,000.
The origins of the coin remain a mystery. It may have been struck at the Royal Mint in London where the die was manufactured, or perhaps produced in Perth as a test or demonstration and never recorded.
In 1899, the newly appointed workmen needed to be trained in the specialised coining techniques, processes which took some time to learn. More than half the blanks produced in 1899 failed to reach the rigorous standards for Imperial coinage and were rejected. Were the 1899 half-sovereign dies used as part of the training process? Or was there so much pressure on the staff to increase the efficiency of sovereign production that they never even tried to fit the half-sovereign dies into the presses?
The Mint ordered new dies for sovereigns and half-sovereigns every year from 1899 onwards. Banks would request half-sovereigns for India, where small coin was attractive to gold hoarders. But half-sovereigns were not made every year, and presumably those dies were never used.
Greg McDonald's Pocketbook Guide to Australian Coins and Banknotes lists a single 1906 half-sovereign in the Royal Mint's collection in London. Like the single 1899 half-sovereign, its origin remains unclear, as no half-sovereign production is mentioned in the Perth Branch Appendix of the 1906 Annual Report of the Royal Mint.
In 1931, The Perth Mint was ordered to stop production of gold coins, but the regular order for sovereign and half-sovereign dies for 1932 was fulfilled. The surviving Die Register shows the destruction or all but one set of sovereign dies - and these can be seen in the Perth Mint Gold Exhibition today.
Each year, the Keeper of the Coins of the British Museum asked The Perth Mint's Deputy Master for specimens of Perth sovereigns. On January 7 1932, Hugh Annan Corbet wrote to the Deputy Master of the Mint in London:
"At the moment it does not appear that we shall do a coinage for 1932 in the ordinary course. I am inclined to strike the one sovereign for the Museum, and, if there is no other coinage, to ignore the question of Pyx, and to say in the Annual Report that a specimen sovereign was struck for the British Museum."
(This indicates no reluctance on behalf of the Mint to use a pair of dies to produce a single specimen. It also reflects the good intentions of including all production in the Annual reports.) However, Corbet was advised that the Museum only needed specimens of coins that went into circulation, so he did not use the 1932 dies and the Annual Report records no special strikings using the 1932 dies.
Fred A. Murphy
On 16-Feb-2000, Colin & Vanessa Kynoch <finance...@optusnet.com.au>
wrote:
> "At the moment it does not appear that we shall do a coinage for 1932 in
> the ordinary course. I am inclined to strike the one sovereign for the
> Museum, and, if there is no other coinage, to ignore the question of
> Pyx, and to say in the Annual Report that a specimen sovereign was
> struck for the British Museum."
The Pyx, or the Trial of the Pyx, is an annual event at most mints, where
samples that have been taken during the year are assayed to determine that
the output of the mint is still within tolerance for purity of metal,
weight, etc. Since there is constant quality control at most mints, the
Trial is largely ceremonial, but last I heard, relatively inexpensive.
Public particupation in it was cancelled in the US one year as a budget
cutting measure, but numismatists made quite a stink about it. AFAIK, it
was reinstated the next year, and has remained since then. Cost was
something like $30,000, IIRC.