The 1942 florins

F42M.5D
Mint: Melbourne
Mint mark: None
Mintage: 18,070,000

F42F.5D
Mint: U.S. Mint, San Francisco
Mint mark: S above date
Mintage: 6,000,000

There are no known varieties of the 1942 florin as struck in Melbourne. According to John Dean, there are three varieties of the San Francisco coin which differ according to the position of the mint mark. My own observations indicate that there are at least five varieties and probably many more.

Reverse of 1942 florin
| F42M.3B Melbourne issue, no mint mark.
| F42F.3B San Fransisco issue, S above date

Mintmark variations of the 1942 San Francisco florin
| Mint mark is very high and most of the upper curve of the S is outside the exergue.
| Mint mark is moderately high and the upper part of the S spans the exergue boundary.
| Top of S just touches the boundary of the exergue. This seems to be the most common variety.
| S is entirely within the exergue but almost touches the boundary. This seems to be the second most common variety.
| S is very low and there is a substantial gap between the top of the S and the boundary of the exergue.

It is almost certain that the mint mark was hand-punched onto each working die in which case each die is likely to be slightly different from its siblings and the examples shown above are just representative of the variations to be found in the 1942 San Francisco strikings.

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Most recent revision: 6th February 2000
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