? The Royal Australian Mint has produced a silver kangaroo piece every year since 1993. This piece, issued in 1995, was designed by Horst Hahne and features the head of a kangaroo with the legend
? The Kangaroo design continued into this type right until the introduction of decimal currency with the conclusion of the penny series in 1964. This type features a slightly reworded obverse legend, ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA F:D , which was modified after public outcry that the previous type omitted FIDEI DEF . All dates in the series are easy to acquire in mint state , though the 1959 plain from the Melbourne mint is quite scarce. Finding any date beyond MS64 is a challenge, ...
? The 1865 is quite a scarce date, though the pricing of the coin would indicate that it is slightly overrated compared to some of the other dates in the series such as the 1863 which is of similar scarcity. This is probably because of the low 62,000 mintage reported for the date by many other catalogues. This 62,000 figure is the mintage figure for 1867, but no half sovereigns dated 1867 are known so it is the opinion of some numismatists that coins struck in that year were dated ...
?Image from: A.H. Baldwin & Sons Ltd . Victoria, Sovereign, 1855. 'Auction 73 8 May 2012'. Retrieved from https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=290&lot=74
? The 1943 is one of the easiest dates in the series with a high mintage of almost 34 million pieces and a small number of mint rolls surfacing. The date is almost always struck without significant flaws allowing for higher grade mint state pieces but by this stage the obverse dies were already quite worn and as such often lack central detail. Soft obverse of a 1943 half penny Date set collectors will have no problem obtaining this date in circulated grades ...