When it comes to collecting vintage gold coins, collectors have two distinct options.

Collectors can acquire coins that were struck for circulation. Circulating coins were mass produced, hurled down a shute and into a barrel to be delivered to the banks, the mintages determined by Government and generally in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. 

Collectors can also collect coins that were struck as Coins of Record. Using standards and techniques far beyond that required for circulating currency, Coins of Record were minted to a proof or specimen finish and because the process was time-intensive, mintages were generally less than ten.

Each option, circulating currency or Coins of Record, presents the buyer with a vastly different sized pool of examples from which to choose. And very different challenges for procurement.

Average circulating gold sovereigns struck in years that have no special importance are generally readily available. 

Once a buyer sets parameters on the quality and the dates being sought, the pool of specimens narrows and it is true that acquiring a key date gold coin that was struck for circulation, particularly one in premium quality, can be a journey in time that involves years.

This 1856 Sovereign is a key-date coin, the second year of operation of the nation's first mint. And the quality, Uncirculated. 

History shows us that it could be five to ten years before a comparable example surfaces.

The Sydney Mint was established in a wing of the 'Rum Hospital' in Macquarie Street, Sydney. 

The mint began receiving gold on 14 May 1855 and issued its first gold sovereign soon after on June 23. A total of 502,000 sovereigns were issued in 1855 and 981,000 the following year.

Both coins share the same reverse design. And the same obverse design of a young Queen Victoria with a braid in her hair, referred to as the Type I portrait design.

The Type I design only lasted for two years, and was replaced in 1857, making the 1855 and 1856 Sydney Mint Sovereigns keenly sought. 

Based on the mintages of 502,000 and 981,000, the 1855 Sydney Mint Sovereign should be twice as difficult to find. But that is simply not the case.

Both the 1855 and the 1856 Sovereign are equally difficult to find in any quality, and particularly challenging to find an 1856 sovereign in top quality.

We looked at some of the famous gold coin auctions and compared their offering of the 1855 Sydney Mint Sovereign and the 1856 counterpart. With an acknowledgement of the almost unlimited resources involved in putting together these collections, both physically and financially. 

The 1856 Sovereign posed the greatest challenge.

• The Quartermaster auction in 2009 offered a Choice Uncirculated 1855 and an Uncirculated 1856. We further note that the Quartermaster 1855 and 1856 sovereigns had been formerly owned by Robert Jaggard and Paul Terry, both collectors having advanced gold coin collections and unlimited resources to acquire the very best. 

• The famous Sharps Pixley Auction conducted by Spink Auctions in Sydney 1989 offered a Choice Uncirculated 1855 Sovereign with full mint bloom, yet only a circulated 1856 Sovereign, graded Extremely Fine.

• The Bentley Collection in London 2012, offered an 1855 sovereign similar in quality to the Quartermaster example, and a circulated 1856, Extremely Fine.

• The sale of the George Collection conducted by St James Auction in London in 2014, offered the Sharps Pixley Choice Uncirculated 1855 Sovereign and again an Extremely Fine 1856 Sovereign.

Conclusion? This Uncirculated 1856 Sydney Mint Sovereign is a profound opportunity for the Sovereign collector. 

1813 A1 Dump

$85,000

The only 1856 Sovereign we have handled at this quality level.

We checked back at some of the most famous gold coin auctions held over the past fifty years comparing the quality of the 1855 and 1856 Sovereign. 

Auctions such as Spink Auctions Sharpes Pixley Collection in 1989, Monetarium’s Quartermaster Collection in 2009, Baldwins London Bentley Collection in 2012 and St James Auction London George Collection in 2014. 

Whereas the 1855 Sydney Mint Sovereign was offered as high as Choice Uncirculated, the top grading level of the 1856 Sydney Mint Sovereign was Uncirculated, equivalent to the coin offered here. 

Its quite Illuminating when you consider the almost unlimited resources involved in putting together these three collections, both physically and financially. And the names associated with these collections, that had access to the very best, Bob Jaggard, Paul Terry, Barrie Winsor. 

In 1851, the Sydney Morning Herald published an editorial championing the establishment of a branch of the Royal Mint in Sydney to buy gold at full price and strike it into sovereigns.

The plan for a branch of the Royal Mint received great support from the diggers. Solid opposition came from the banks and a prominent group of private individuals both of whom had become major buyers of gold on the fields at prices discounted well below the full London price. Profits were at stake! Both factions had earlier joined forces to quash a proposal for a Sydney Assay Office that would have also impacted negatively on their commercial interests.

While it is true that New South Wales had in 1851 formally petitioned the home office in London for a branch of the Royal Mint, the decision had already been made in the British Parliament to give the colonies greater autonomy and establish a branch mint to allow them to strike coins of the realm, the sovereign.  

The Sydney Mint would strike sovereigns and half sovereigns to exactly the weight and fineness levels at the Royal Mint but they would have their own design. This was to protect the international reputation of the imperial gold coins in the event that Sydney was unable to meet the exacting standards demanded of the coin.

On the 19 August 1853 Queen Victoria gave formal approval to establish Australia’s very first mint at or near Sydney in New South Wales. In the same year, the Royal Mint London prepared designs of Australia’s first gold coinage and manufactured the dies.

The sovereign and half sovereign obverse design was a filleted bust of Victoria, only slightly different to that used on British sovereigns. The obverse quickly fell out of favour and James Wyon was ordered to engrave a new obverse that would be uniquely Australian to easily distinguish the colonial sovereigns from their British counterparts. To this end, a new portrait was introduced in 1857 that featured Queen Victoria with a banksia wreath in her hair instead of the band.

The reverse design was based loosely around contemporary reverse designs of the British sixpence and shilling. Its strong point of difference to the British sovereigns was the inclusion of the words 'Australia' and 'Sydney Mint'.

The use of the word Australia, a fascination with historians. At the time the nation was operating as separate colonies. Australia did not operate under a single Government until Federation in 1901.

The first Deputy Master of the Sydney Mint was Captain Edward Wolstenholme Ward, a trained member of the Royal Engineers. (Photo shown at top.)

Ward arrived in the colony in October 1854 on the ship Calcutta, along with other members of the Royal Engineers, a sergeant, three corporals and twelve privates. The group was deposited on Circular Quay with the bales and boxes of Sydney's new mint, along with the dies.

The Sydney Mint was established in a wing of the 'Rum Hospital' in Macquarie Street, Sydney. The mint began receiving gold on 14 May 1855 and issued its first gold sovereign soon after on June 23.

In their infancy the Sydney Mint sovereigns and half sovereigns were legal tender only in the colony of New South Wales.

In January 1856, the British tested the quality of the colonial gold coins and the results showed that they had a higher intrinsic value than their British counterparts, primarily due to their 8.33% silver content. Once these facts became known, profiteers began melting them down.

The colonial gold coins also became legal tender in Tasmania and Western Australia in 1856. South Australia and Victoria were reticent to enshrine the Sydney Mint as Australia's official mint as each colony had independently requested their own and were miffed at missing out.

By 1857, the legal tender scope was widened to include all Australian colonies and Mauritius, Ceylon and Hong Kong. In 1868 the Sydney Mint Sovereigns and Half Sovereigns became legal tender throughout the British Empire.

The design of the Sydney Mint Sovereign lasted until 1870 and was the only time the word Australia appeared on our gold sovereigns. From 1871, Australia's sovereigns took on a traditional British design.