There are a lot of sovereign rarities across the George V sovereign series. There are about a dozen major rarities from the 1920s to 1930s, as well as handful minor ones. Key dates like the 1923SA cur...

On the 17th May 2020, one of the oldest and most comprehensive sets of sovereigns on the PCGS Set Registry sold under the hammer in Texas, United States. Called the Caranett Collection, this award-win...

The gold sovereign is one of the most widely-recognised and sought-after gold coins in the world. Their historic appeal makes the gold sovereign ideal collection items. But not all gold sovereigns are...

Mint marks are small letters struck on a gold sovereigns that identify its origin. If you are a coin collector, knowing about these marks is essential. A mint mark not only tells the collector where t...

In 2006, the Royal Australian Mint accidentally issued a number of proof sets with a 2005-dated dollar coin. The reverse of this coin bore the standard Kangaroo design (known as the “mob of ‘roos�...

When assessing a coin, the first thing I do is look at the coin in hand from about an arm’s length away. I’ll rotate the coin, allowing the light to catch it at various angles. I’ll feel the rim...

Somehow people’s vision when you use the word “cleaning” is getting a wire brush and giving your 1930 penny a good spruce up. Cleaning to me is removing the crud that has accumulated on the face...

Although I’ve lived in Sydney all my life, I’ve never found the time to visit the Reserve Bank of Australia Coin and Banknote Museum next to Martins Place. I had a few hours spare just before Chri...

It isn’t widely known, but the 1881 Melbourne and 1882 Sydney shield sovereigns come in two distinct varieties. The first type has a pointy tip on the truncation while the second type has a round ti...

Photographed below, a very special 1957 Perth penny in PCGS PR64RD. There are two types: 1) the common type, struck in 1959, which has the finish of a 1959 proof penny, and 2) the rare type, which was...

Perth is one of my favourite Australian cities, but I don’t often get the chance to head over there. Earlier this year, I was there for the Perth Money Expo and took the opportunity to visit the wor...

Well, after months of hard work and development, Version 4.0 of the new Drake Sterling site has gone live. We hope that you enjoy the modern styling and enhanced image quality, as well as the new and ...

Last year, British gold dealer Paul Davies identified a variety on the 2002 proof two pound piece. While both reverse and obverse are identical, the edge milling is different on a small number of piec...

Last October, we visited the birthplace of almost all of the United Kingdom’s native coins, the Royal Mint in Wales. We weren’t allowed to take images on the factory floor, but the adjoining museu...

The Royal Mint issued five pound pieces in 1902 in proof and for circulation. Both versions of this coin are widely collected, but unlike most years where a proof version exists, the circulation strik...

I was reading a great coin article by Philip McLoughlin in the Coin News magazine this month about some of George Kruger-Gray’s alternative designs for Australia’s new coinage in 1938. If you have...

The mint made 72 million small head 2004 twenty cent pieces in 2004, but just 400,000 examples of the large head version. For this reason, many collectors conclude that the small head is far more comm...

Move over Canberra florin, the Gothic Crown must be the world's most beautiful coin. Issued in 1847 and 1853, both dates are popular with collectors. There are several different varieties of the 1847,...

The British Indian mohurs of the 1830s and 1840s bore a masculine rendition of a stalking lion in front of a palm tree. It's a beautiful design that was later used on the logo of the Reserve Bank of I...

The Perth Coin and Stamp coin was held on 7th to 9th July at the South Perth Community Centre. Although I wasn’t able to attend personally, collector Jenny Ensbey was able to provide some live shots...