{
  "$why": "Observations of the two references most often recommended for Australian coins, recorded to the same standard as every figure in this catalogue: the URL, the date it was read, and what was actually on the page. Gathered by research/au-coins/fetch-comparison.mjs, which drives a real browser because coinsandaustralia.com returns 403 to a plain HTTP client. Every figure below was read out of the saved HTML, not out of a summary of it. Nothing here is a judgement about the quality of those sites; both are good at what they set out to do, and the 'better_there' block says where they beat us.",
  "accessed": "2026-09-01",
  "sources": {
    "numista": {
      "name": "Numista",
      "what_it_is": "a world coin catalogue, community-maintained, with a collection manager and swap system",
      "cites": "KM# (Standard Catalog of World Coins) and Schön# (Weltmünzkatalog): both secondary catalogues, not the mint's own records",
      "states_basis": false,
      "cites_primary_document": false
    },
    "coinsandaustralia": {
      "name": "Coins and Australia",
      "what_it_is": "an Australian price guide: retail values by grade, auction results, melt values",
      "cites": "no source given for mintage figures on the pages read",
      "states_basis": false,
      "cites_primary_document": false
    }
  },
  "observations": [
    {
      "id": "crown-1937",
      "coin": "1937 crown",
      "url": "https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces12503.html",
      "source": "numista",
      "as_printed": "1 008 000",
      "value": 1008000,
      "row": "1937 | 1 008 000 | Circulation | 94%",
      "ours": 1000800,
      "ours_basis": "issued",
      "note": "The 1938 row agrees with us exactly (101 600), which is what makes the 1937 row worth pointing at: the method is not in dispute, one figure is."
    },
    {
      "id": "crown-1938",
      "coin": "1938 crown",
      "url": "https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces12503.html",
      "source": "numista",
      "as_printed": "101 600",
      "value": 101600,
      "row": "1938 | 101 600 | Circulation | 14%",
      "ours": 101600,
      "ours_basis": "issued",
      "note": "Exact agreement."
    },
    {
      "id": "crown-cna",
      "coin": "1937 crown",
      "url": "https://www.coinsandaustralia.com/coins-prices-value.php?coin=crown-1937&years=crown-1937-1938&cat=pre-decimal",
      "source": "coinsandaustralia",
      "as_printed": null,
      "value": null,
      "row": "the word \"mintage\" does not appear on the page",
      "note": "The page gives retail prices for seven grades, a melt value and two auction results. It is a price guide and does not claim otherwise."
    },
    {
      "id": "penny-1911",
      "coin": "1911 penny",
      "url": "https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1269.html",
      "source": "numista",
      "as_printed": "3 768 000",
      "value": 3768000,
      "row": "1911 | 3 768 000 | ... | London Mint | 16%",
      "ours": 3768000,
      "ours_basis": "struck-in-report-year",
      "note": "The same number as ours, to the unit. The difference is not the figure, it is that we can show the line of the Royal Mint report it came out of, and say that it counts what London struck for Australia during report year 1911 rather than coins bearing the date 1911."
    },
    {
      "id": "penny-1920",
      "coin": "1920 penny",
      "url": "https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1269.html",
      "source": "numista",
      "as_printed": "9 041 000",
      "value": 9041000,
      "row": "1920 | 9 041 000 | ... | Melbourne & Sydney Mints - Without dots | 12%",
      "note": "The six dot varieties beneath it carry no mintage at all. Coins and Australia prints the same 9,041,000 against 'No dot' and 'Included above' against every other variety."
    },
    {
      "id": "ten-cents-2010",
      "coin": "2010 ten cent",
      "url": "https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1565.html",
      "source": "numista",
      "as_printed": "84 900 000",
      "value": 84900000,
      "row": "2010 | 84 900 000 | ... | Circulation | 16%",
      "ours": 84900000,
      "ours_basis": "final-mintage-as-published",
      "note": "This is the Royal Australian Mint's website figure, which is printed there as '84.9' in millions and is therefore known to within 50,000, not to the unit. Numista prints it to the unit. The Mint's own annual reports account for 104,943,000 struck, which Numista does not carry."
    }
  ],
  "better_there": [
    {
      "source": "coinsandaustralia",
      "what": "how many varieties it lists",
      "detail": "Its 1920 penny page lists seven varieties where we list three, because it splits each dot position by obverse type: \"Dot below lower scroll - Indian\" and \"- English\" are separate rows there and one row here. That is a real gap and it is still open. What was ALSO a gap when this page was first written, and is now closed, was the bench test: their page tells you the Indian obverse has 178 beads and the N of OMN points to a denticle, and ours simply said \"Indian master-die obverse\". We had the test all along, from the Numismatic Association of Australia's journal rather than an unsourced page, sitting in a row of its own and connected to nothing. It is now attached to all 14 varieties whose identification turns on it, with the quote and the source. Finding that took a stranger telling us our site was no good.",
      "closed_on": "2026-09-01"
    },
    {
      "source": "coinsandaustralia",
      "what": "what a coin is worth",
      "detail": "Retail prices by grade, melt values and auction results. This is the single most common thing people want and we do not carry it, on purpose, because a price is a market's opinion on a day and not a fact anyone can quote from a document."
    },
    {
      "source": "numista",
      "what": "coverage beyond Australia",
      "detail": "Numista catalogues the world. This catalogue does one country, and there is no sense in which it replaces a world catalogue."
    },
    {
      "source": "numista",
      "what": "a collection manager and swap list",
      "detail": "Numista tracks what you own across the whole world catalogue and matches you with other collectors. Ours marks off Australian issues in your own browser and that is all it does."
    }
  ],
  "coverage": {
    "measured": "2026-09-01",
    "one_coin": {
      "How many were made": {
        "numista": true,
        "coinsandaustralia": true,
        "ours": true
      },
      "What that number counts": {
        "numista": false,
        "coinsandaustralia": false,
        "ours": true
      },
      "Which varieties exist": {
        "numista": true,
        "coinsandaustralia": true,
        "ours": true
      },
      "How to tell them apart": {
        "numista": false,
        "coinsandaustralia": true,
        "ours": true
      },
      "What it is made of": {
        "numista": true,
        "coinsandaustralia": true,
        "ours": true
      },
      "What it weighs": {
        "numista": true,
        "coinsandaustralia": true,
        "ours": false
      },
      "What it is worth": {
        "numista": true,
        "coinsandaustralia": true,
        "ours": false
      }
    },
    "across_the_series": {
      "Silver content of every silver coin": {
        "numista": false,
        "coinsandaustralia": false,
        "ours": true
      },
      "Which years contain silver at which standard": {
        "numista": true,
        "coinsandaustralia": true,
        "ours": true
      },
      "Every year of one denomination with its mintage": {
        "numista": true,
        "coinsandaustralia": true,
        "ours": true
      },
      "Compare mintages across denominations": {
        "numista": false,
        "coinsandaustralia": false,
        "ours": true
      },
      "Mark off what you already own": {
        "numista": true,
        "coinsandaustralia": false,
        "ours": true
      }
    },
    "totals": {
      "one_coin": {
        "numista": 5,
        "coinsandaustralia": 6,
        "ours": 5
      },
      "across_the_series": {
        "numista": 3,
        "coinsandaustralia": 2,
        "ours": 5
      }
    },
    "of": {
      "one_coin": 7,
      "across_the_series": 5
    }
  }
}