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1 Sovereign - Victoria
| Issuer | Royal Mint |
|---|---|
| Year | 1871-1887 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Sovereign |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The youthful uncrowned effigy of Queen Victoria faces left, her hair swept back and gathered into a coiled bun, engraved after William Wyon's celebrated 'Young Head' portrait. The surrounding legend reads VICTORIA D:G: BRITANNIAR: REG: F:D: separated by colonized stops, running along the inner border of a fine toothed rim. The engraver's initials W.W. appear on the truncation of the neck. The mintmark — M for Melbourne or S for Sydney — is struck below the bust near the bottom of the coin. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Milled |
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| Additional information |
The Victorian sovereign series spanning 1871–1887 coincided with a period of aggressive imperial expansion, and these coins genuinely circulated globally — not as a figure of speech but as the dominant medium of international trade settlement. The Melbourne and Sydney branches of the Royal Mint opened in 1872 and 1855 respectively, producing sovereigns to identical specifications, which means mint-marked examples from this run are considerably more common than collectors sometimes assume.
The London issues of this period are distinguished by die number placement on the truncation, a practice discontinued after 1874.