The 1955 pennies

Australian pennies dated 1955 were minted in Melbourne and Perth. The Perth coin occurs in two varieties; the common one has the digits of the date evenly spaced whereas scarcer variety has the last two digits closer together. The mintage figures for Perth do not distinguish the two varieties but it is likely that about a million coins were minted with the fives close together.

The rare variety of the 1955 penny is the Perth issue featuring the new "type 9" obverse which was to be used from 1956 onwards.

Statistics
Designation | P55M.8H | P55P.8G.1 | P55P.8G.2 | P55P.9G
Mint | Melbourne | Perth | Perth | Perth
Mintage | 6,348,000 | 11,109,600

Reverses
| Melbourne issue, P55M.8H Note that the reverse die used to strike this coin is the same as that used for the scarcer 1953 Melbourne penny.
| Perth issue, P55P.8G.1 This is the more common of the two Perth reverses where the digits of the date are evenly separated. (Of course the rare 9G variety shares this reverse.)
| Perth issue, P55P.8G.2 5s are close together. Not as common as the previous variety but not really scarce either. In 245 Perth pennies I found 23 of this variety.

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Most recent revision: 27th June 2000
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