au-penny-1930
The 1930 penny is the most famous coin in the Australian series and the one this catalogue is least able to give a number for. That is not an oversight, and the page says so at length because a bare "no mintage recorded" would read as a gap rather than as the finding it is.
Every year the Royal Mint printed an appendix of coin struck, denomination by denomination, for each government it served. Australia's block for 1930 carries exactly one line, and it is not the penny.
Australia ;—(a) g ,5 s. :1 £ 8. anZe—Halfpenny 638,400 1,330 1,330
The 1930 appendix, under footnote (a), "At the Royal Mint, Melbourne". "anZe" is the scan's rendering of "Bronze". · the page it is on
A line can go missing from a scan. This one did not: the same appendix in the neighbouring years prints the penny plainly, so its silence in 1930 is a fact about the coinage rather than about the transcription.
Bronze—Penny 2,599,200 10,830 10,830
The 1929 appendix. The 1931 appendix prints its penny line the same way. Both years carry the penny; 1930 does not. · the page it is on
Public guides give the 1930 penny a mintage, commonly 1,200. No primary record in this corpus supports that as a struck figure, because the Mint recorded no pennies struck at all in 1930. What the published figure actually represents is not stated by the sources that print it: whether it is an estimate of coins made, of coins surviving, or of coins seen, they do not say. This catalogue therefore prints no mintage for the 1930 penny, and would rather leave the most valuable cell in the series empty than fill it with a number whose meaning nobody can name.
The guide referred to is here, cited as evidence of what is commonly published rather than as a source for any figure in this catalogue. How such figures are derived is taken apart in where the usual figures come from.
The specimen strikes are separately documented, and even there the source distinguishes what was made from what survives. That distinction is the whole reason this catalogue keeps a basis on every figure.
struck 12 specimen pieces
Recorded against the 1930 specimen penny, Indian obverse with London reverse. The same source adds that only six are known to exist: production and survival are different measures, and it says so itself.
Three obverse and reverse pairings are documented for 1930 and are listed below. What is not documented, anywhere in the Royal Mint's own account of what it made that year, is a single penny.
No mintage figure is recorded for this issue yet.
No document names a figure for coins dated 1930. The reports do say what the branch mints delivered in the report years around it, and a coin of this date had to come from one of those deliveries.
| Report year | As the report prints it | In pieces | Mint |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1931 | 2,060l. | 494,400 | Melbourne |
So at most 494,400 pieces can bear the date 1930, if Coins dated 1930 were struck in report year 1930 or 1931.
The reports describe dates lagging by a year, but not always by only one: the 1939 report records that Melbourne went on using 1936 dies throughout 1937. Where a date persisted, the true figure can exceed this ceiling.
A variety is a claim about a coin, and claims differ in how well they are evidenced. The grade beside each says what kind of source stands behind it. This catalogue prints no valuations, so nothing here tells you what a variety is worth.
| Variety | How you tell it apart | Evidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1930 penny, English obverse / London reverse | English obverse paired with London reverse | scholarly
a numismatic society, museum catalogue or archival study |
sourceSharples has identified two die combinations for the 1930 penny, all with the London reverse, and with both the English and Indian obverses represented. |
| 1930 penny, Indian obverse / London reverse | Indian obverse paired with London reverse | scholarly
a numismatic society, museum catalogue or archival study |
sourceSharples has identified two die combinations for the 1930 penny, all with the London reverse, and with both the English and Indian obverses represented. |
| 1930 specimen penny, Indian obverse / London reverse | Indian obverse; London reverse; 3 overdate and reverse denticle fault on sufficiently sharp examples | scholarly
a numismatic society, museum catalogue or archival study |
sourceThe four of the six 1930 specimen pennies for which the author has detailed date images exhibit this quite clearly, as does the penny shown in Figure 8. Die combinations Sharples has identified two die combinations for the 1930 penny, all with the London reverse, and with both the English and Indian obverses represented. All the 1930 pennies discussed in this article have the Indian die obverse (Fig. 10). These also have the London die reverse (Figs 11a and 11b). Not a numerical disagreement: source reports “struck 12 specimen pieces” but “only six are known to exist”; production and known survival are different measures. |
It does not tell you what the coin is worth. A catalogue can honestly report how many were struck, what metal is in one, and what the documents say. It cannot report a market price without either inventing it or copying someone who might have. So this catalogue reports the first three and stays quiet about the fourth.