1931 One Penny

The 1931 Penny was stuck at the Melbourne Mint with a total mintage of 494,000. This was one of the lowest mintage figures of the series and as a result the type is relatively expensive for the series across all grades. In mint-state it would be a challenge for collectors to find an example below a thousand dollars.

It has been discovered that there are four varieties of the year. The varieties have emerged from a combination of two different obverse dies (London and Calcutta) and two different reverse dies (London and Birmingham). The London reverse can be identified by the second '1' in the date being misaligned meaning it appears straight and doesn't seem to properly follow the rounding of the coin (see below). The Birmingham reverse can be identified by the normal alignment of the second '1' in the date (see below).

Aligned '1' on the Birmingham reverse.

Dropped unaligned '1' on the London reverse.

The two obverse varieties are hard to differentiate but the London die features 177 beads and the Calcutta die features 178. In his comprehensive article Paul Holland notes that if the final stroke of the 'N' of 'OMN' is aligned between the border beads then its an English die. (Paul Holland, 2009)

Last stroke aligned with border bead on the Calcutta reverse.

Last stroke not aligned with border bead on the London reverse.

References

• Paul Holland (2009). Master dies and tools from the Royal Mint for Australian pennies and halfpennies of George V. Journal of the Numismatic Association of Australia. Available at: https://www.numismatics.org.au/pdfjournal/Vol20/Vol%2020%20Article%204.pdf