The 1913 Florin was the third year in the George V Florin series. The Royal Mint in London was responsible for the manufacture of the 1,200,000 pieces which were placed into circulation in Australia. This was the largest mintage in the series to date but was quite typical for the series overall. The type is quite scarce, particularly in mid to high grades with the limited remaining mint-state examples reaching very impressive values.
In 1912 the legitimacy of the Florin series had been brought into question following the discovery of counterfeit Florins and Half-Crowns in New South Wales and Queensland. (The Armidale Express, 1912) The controversy would further escalate in 1913 when it became clear that an organised gang were mass producing these counterfeit Florins to an increasingly high quality. Thousands of the counterfeits were used and one newspaper stated that the quality was so excellent that the coins being new was the '...only fault that enables them to be detected as counterfeits.' (The Braidwood Dispatch and Mining Journal, 1913)
