Lot 170
ex Raynes, Saxton & Benchmark Collections. The single finest known
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Notes:
- A small number of 1920 /./ pennies were struck by the Sydney Mint with an English obverse. Sydney had been sent three English obverse dies in July, 1920 along with three 1919 .//. reverses, so that it could prepare the presses to strike 1920-dated pennies. It is now apparent that one of these obverse dies was used 'experimentally' with a 1920 /./ reverse to produce this extremely rare variety. W. J. Mullet in his book 'Australian Coinage - An Account of Particular Coins' states that the Sydney Mint struck 146,160 pennies in 1921 that must have been dated 1920, as Sydney had no 1921 reverse dies. This figure is likely to have been the 1920 production from the dies with differing dot placements that were forwarded to Sydney so that it could experiment with striking the larger sized pennies before beginning its main production of the 1920 /./ 'Indian Obverse' pennies. According to Mullet it was mint practice that coins struck from experimental dies "would be placed in a calico bag, added to the canvas draft bag and held in the strongroom and still accounted as a draft of blanks. The main responsibility was to account for the metal belonging to the Commonwealth rather than to claim an inconsiderable coin production". In that way the total number of 'experimental' coins, including the 1920 /./ 'English Obverse' pennies, would likely have been counted in a strongroom audit in 1921 before making their way into circulation. This variety is extremely rare as its existence has only been confirmed for a little over a decade. There are currently only about 15 known. This particular coin, ex the Jon Saxton Collection holds the honour of being the first of this variety discovered and is to date the finest known. John was a well regarded researcher of Australian coin varieties. On the 7th July 2003 he posted on his website that " a few days ago Geoff Raynes of Kalgoorlie WA discovered a hitherto unpublished variety of the 1920 Penny. The reverse features a dot over the lower scroll but the obverse is the London die pattern". When the Saxton Collection was sold a notation with this coin read "GR April 2004" indicating when he bought the Raynes coin. The 1920 /./ 'English Obverse' Penny ranks as the third rarest Australian circulating coin after the 1930 'English Obverse' Penny and the 1916 'Mule' Halfpenny. On the numbers likely to emerge, this particular coin is equivalent in rarity to an Extremely Fine 1930 'Indian Obverse' Penny. (Information courtesy of the www.benchmarkcoincatalogue.com)
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|---|---|---|
| A$0 | A$99 | A$10 |
| A$100 | A$999 | A$20 |
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| A$5,000 | A$9,999 | A$100 |
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