Coinworks

SEO STOCK SHEET 3 - 1855 SYDNEY MINT GOLD

Name: Coinworks
Address: Suite 17, 210 Toorak Road, South Yarra, VIC, 3141, AU
Telephone: 03 9642 3133

104061-Header-1855-Sydney-Mint-Gold-Stock-Sheet-June-2025

104061-Mobile-Header-1855-Sydney-Mint-Gold-Stock-Sheet-June-2025

The journey to an official Australian gold coinage lasted four years, the quest beginning in 1851 with the discovery of gold near Bathurst, New South Wales and Ballarat in Victoria. The journey was completed four years later with the opening of a mint in Sydney. And the striking of our first royally approved gold coinage, the 1855 Sydney Mint Sovereign and 1855 Sydney Mint Half Sovereign.

Gold was Australia's first major mineral resource. Its discovery had a profound impact on the nation's social and political development, underpinning the abandonment of the penal system on which the settlement of Australia was based.

Australia's new-found wealth in the 1850s stimulated a vast influx of free immigrants, bringing new skills and professions and contributing to a burgeoning economy. Between 1851 and 1855, Australia's population doubled.

It is one of the most eventful and extraordinary chapters in Australian history, transforming the economy and the nation's social order, marking the beginnings of a modern multi-cultural Australia.

There were five Australian colonies by mid-1851, (Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia and New South Wales) with each in agreement that a gold coinage should be locally produced, that the six-month round trip for shipping gold to and from London was impractical and an impediment to business.

Each colony however was experiencing different social and financial pressures from the gold rush and each colony, therefore, had different views as to what form a gold coinage should take. And different views on its urgency.

1852, 1854, 1855 ... the journey to a gold coinage.

In 1852, the colony of South Australia was on the verge of bankruptcy, in desperate need of hard currency to exchange for the digger's gold and to stimulate a return to commerce. Using a loophole in regulations, South Australia passed legislation that supported the production of gold coins, the 1852 Adelaide Pound. But, it was a temporary measure, a one-year only coin, the legislation expiring in January 1853.

The second attempt to introduce a gold coinage involved the establishment, in 1854, of a private mint in Melbourne, the Kangaroo Office. Financed by British entrepreneurs, the main player was William Joseph Taylor, a British businessman. While the mint operated for a few years and ultimately failed, it did leave an important legacy for today’s collectors in the form of the Kangaroo Office W J Taylor Gold coins.

The third attempt to introduce an Australian gold coinage came from New South Wales. The colony followed protocols and in 1851 petitioned the Home Office in London for a branch of the Royal Mint. Approval was granted in 1853, the Sydney Mint opening two years later issuing Australia's first official gold coinage, the 1855 Sydney Mint Sovereign and 1855 Sydney Mint Half Sovereign.

The Sydney Mint struck a modest 502,000 Sovereigns and an even more modest 21,000 Half Sovereigns in 1855. In the second year, sovereign and half sovereign production rose to 981,000 and 478,000 respectively. Sovereign mintages were cranked up thereafter. In its first ten years of operation, Sydney Mint annual sovereign production averaged 1.45 million coins. Correspondingly, Sydney Mint Half Sovereign mintages remained modest, averaging 285,000 coins.

For collectors, the prize is those coins struck in the first year of opening of the Sydney Mint, the 1855 Sydney Mint Sovereign and the 1855 Sydney Mint Half Sovereign. The coins are respected for their rarity, their everlasting history and are in demand worldwide.

Coin: 1855 Sydney Mint Sovereign #103494

Price: $***

Quality/comments: BUNC