au-penny-1953
No mintage figure is recorded for this issue yet.
No document names a figure for coins dated 1953. 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 | Pieces delivered | Mint |
|---|---|---|
| 1953 | 59,215,200 | Melbourne, Perth |
So at most 59,215,200 pieces can bear the date 1953, if Coins dated 1953 were struck in report year 1953 or 1954.
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.
Where the usual figure comes from. A mintage of 59,215,200 for 1953 is what you get by taking the report year 1953 delivery and treating it as the coin’s date. That is the commonest figure in circulation for this coin and it rests on an assumption the reports themselves contradict, which is why this catalogue prints it here as an explanation rather than above as a mintage.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1953 penny Melbourne sans-serif 5 | First 5 lacks traditional serif | scholarly
a numismatic society, museum catalogue or archival study |
source |
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.