Description
British Empire, Australia, Queen Victoria (1837-1901 AD), Gold Sovereign (7.96g, 22mm), 1855, Type I, Royal mint Sydney branch. Obverse: Young head of Queen Victoria facing to the left, hair bound with double fillet and collected in an updo knot, legend surrounds, “VICTORIA D:G: BRITANNIAR: REG: F:D:”. Reverse: “AUSTRALIA” central below St. Edward’s Crown, all within wreath of olive tied with a knotted bow, legend surrounds above and below, “SYDNEY MINT ONE SOVEREIGN”. Marsh-A360 (R). Calendar year mintage of 502,000. The first royal mint sovereign struck in an Australian branch and, similar to the Adelaide Pound, an essential to any advanced Australian Sovereign collection, typical light contact marks and evenly worn, near Very Fine.
The obverse Latin legend is the Royal titulature of Queen Victoria, reading unabridged as “Victoria, Deī grātiā, Britanniārum Rēgīna, Fideī Dēfēnstrīx”, with an English translation of “Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of the British people, Defender of the Faith”.
With large tracts of gold being discovered to the west of the young British colony of Sydney, the government of New South Wales appealed to the Royal mint in London to open their first overseas branch – approval was granted in August of 1853 and several patterns for the new ‘Australian sovereign’ were made, the successful candidate bearing a unique reverse design far different to any of its predecessors. Although different on the reverse, the obverse remained the same as those coined in London, the ‘Young Head’ of Victoria, for the first two years – these are classified numismatically as ‘Type I Sydney mint Sovereigns’. From 1857 to 1870, the obverse was changed – the ‘Type II’ sovereigns – whereby Victoria wears a wreath of Banksia leaf, a flora which occurs naturally in Australia and is symbolically indicative of the Australian colony. Banksia, among thousands of other plants, was first taken back to England by Sir Joseph Banks (the plant’s namesake) and Dr Daniel Solander 82 years prior to the minting of Sovereigns at the Sydney branch, acquired during H.M.S. Endeavour’s first voyage to the Pacific under the command of Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook. It is important to note that, among all branches of the Royal Mint throughout the entire British Empire, the Sovereigns struck between 1855 and 1870 at the Sydney branch were the only Sovereigns to be struck with a unique design – the later branches to be opened, including Melbourne, Perth, Ottawa, Bombay and Pretoria, struck designs identical to London except for the addition of a small mintmark.
