Australian coins / disagreements

Where the Mint disagrees with itself

One institution, two publications, 14 coins on which they do not agree. This is not a rounding artefact and the catalogue does not choose between them.

The Royal Australian Mint publishes circulating mintages twice. On its website they are rounded to millions. In its annual reports they are exact, by fiscal year, filed under the date the coin bears. A coin dated 2004 was struck across two fiscal years, and the reports file both under 2004.

A difference is listed here only when the reports account for MORE coins than the website admits. That asymmetry is deliberate. A total assembled from report rows can come out too small for a reason that is our fault, a table row missed or a scan that did not cover the whole appendix, and it cannot come out too large for that reason. So an excess is evidence about the Mint; a shortfall would be evidence about us, and we do not publish the second as the first. 30 coins fall short of the website's figure and are recorded that way instead.

Across the 14 disputed coins the figures differ by 74,558,000 pieces in total.

CoinWebsiteAnnual reportsDifference
Five cents 2010 55,100,000
rounded, ±50,000
59,157,000
2010-11 + 2011-12
+4,057,000
Five cents 2009 83,900,000
rounded, ±50,000
83,967,000
2009-10 + 2010-11
+67,000
Five cents 2004 145,300,000
rounded, ±50,000
147,658,000
2003-04 + 2004-05
+2,358,000
Ten cents 2010 84,900,000
rounded, ±50,000
104,943,000
2009-10 + 2010-11 + 2011-12
+20,043,000
Twenty cents 2009 43,600,000
rounded, ±50,000
49,563,000
exact
+5,963,000
Twenty cents 2004 72,100,000
rounded, ±50,000
74,609,000
2003-04 + 2004-05
+2,509,000
Fifty cents 2006 59,300,000
rounded, ±50,000
62,859,000
2005-06 + 2006-07
+3,559,000
Fifty cents 2004 17,900,000
rounded, ±50,000
28,495,000
2003-04 + 2004-05
+10,595,000
One dollar 2010 16,700,000
rounded, ±50,000
32,840,000
2009-10 + 2010-11 + 2011-12
+16,140,000
One dollar 2004 8,800,000
rounded, ±50,000
9,565,000
2003-04 + 2004-05
+765,000
Two dollars 2004 20,000,000
rounded, ±50,000
20,084,000
2003-04 + 2004-05
+84,000
Two dollars 1999 27,300,000
rounded, ±50,000
35,718,000
1999-00 + 2000-01
+8,418,000

Agreeing, but answering different questions

On a further 79 coins the two figures agree within the website's printed precision. They are still not the same quantity: a final mintage against production during a fiscal year. The catalogue records both, with what each was counting, rather than collapsing them into one number that means neither.

Every figure above, with its source, in the API.