The Calcutta pennies: 1916, 1917 and 1918

Mintage
Designation | P16C.2C | P17C.2C | P18C.2C
Mint | Calcutta | Calcutta | Calcutta
Mint mark | I below lower scroll | I below lower scroll | I below lower scroll
Mintge | 3,324,000 | 6,240,000 | 1,200,000

The demands on the Royal Mint imposed by World War I meant that it could not fulfil all the coinage needs of the Australian government. At the time, the Australian branch mints in Sydney and Melbourne were not equipped to strike copper coinage and so the Royal Mint temporised by assigning the contract for Australian bronze coinage to the Calcutta branch mint.

New obverse and reverse tools were sent to Calcutta.

There are no confirmed varieties of any of these coins. A 1916 penny with no mint mark has been reported but it is unclear whether this is a genuine variety or just a filed die. I have the means to distinguish the two cases but I have not seen a specimen.

Reverses
| P16C.2C
| P17C.2C
| P18C.2C

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Prepared 24th March, 2002
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