Are Uncirculated Pre-Dec Coins Really Uncirculated?

The numismatic term applies the the condition of a coin,
not if it actually circulated or not.
By numismatic reasoning, uncirculated condition coins have seen very little, or no circulation at all.

Uncirculated condition pre decimal coins exist for almost every date 1910-1964. All are very rare for their condition, and thus command huge prices at public auction.

I have yet to actually witness a pre decimal 1923 Halfpenny in better than gVF condition, even after more than 50 years of collecting. It seems that almost (if not) all of them, have seen extensive circulation.

'Uncirculated' coins as released for sale by the RAM and sold through MR Roberts coin dealer, are packaged by the Mint, and were sold in their original Mint packaging, so it follows that these coins have seen no circulation at all.

I will leave it to the OP's judgement to decide if coins pictured by MR Roberts are good enough to be graded accurately enough to be purchased by the OP, but I have been dealing with them for almost all of my numismatic life, and I am 100% satisfied with their reputation.

For myself, throughout the entire of my numismatic life, I have always carefully examined each coin in hand personally, before deciding to buy, irrespective of whatever the reputation of the seller may be

A lot of collectors are of the mistaken view that every Uncirculated coin should be perfect. This is definitely not the case. Especially with pre-decimal coins when the standards of production were nowhere near what they are today. Marks,scratches,dents,die fill can all seem like a coin is circulated when it isn't. You only have to open a few hundred RAM rolls of decimal coins to realise that it is quite normal to find coins that you would swear had been circulated. The same applies to pre-decimal coins as most weren't rolled at the mint but came in bags, with greater potential for coins to clash together.
The sheldon system of grading deals a bit with the quality of Uncirculated coins.
Years of experience and knowledge are required to tell the difference and usually(not always) dealers who have been around a long time have this expertise. Judging a coin's condition from photos with high end coins is a bit dodgy as well.

Firstly one has to know the highest relief points for predecimal coins on the reverse +obverse for GV-GVI and QE2..halfpenny,penny,three pence,sixpence,shilling,florin and crown. If you don't know then your paying a UNC price for an AU...

I looked at most of the pennies. The grading looks pretty good to me.



I have been fortunate enough to view one that would grade as MS64 BN. Certainly 1923 halfpennies better than gVF are few and far between.

Yes,I've never been able to jag/afford anything other than VG.

There are some Unc./Aunc in private collections that rarely appear on the open market.
As an aside its an interesting Coin that,like the 1930 penny,did not have any official Mint records.
Also like the 1930 penny the first Sydney based 'finds' appeared during the 1940's.Collectors/Dealers/Numismistists ID them whilst searching for 1930 pennies at that time.
Probably earlier finds but hard to find verifiable facts.

https://coinworks.com.au/1923-Halfpenny~15446

I stand corrected; I think technically it was the Commonwealth Bank (then later the Reserve Bank after the Reserve Bank was founded in 1960) that rolled coins from the Mint, and as such, you couldn't guarantee that every coin in a "mint roll" was directly from the Mint. As I understand it, the coins came to the Reserve Bank in drums, and the Reserve Bank then rolled them up, but there may be coins from circulation tossed into the mix at some point. You can also get Commonwealth Bank and Reserve Bank rolls that are entirely non-Unc, coins that were re-wrapped from circulation.

You can still technically call them "mint rolls" if they are all indeed Unc coins from the Mint, but you'd have to bust the roll open to prove it. Here's somebody on ebay selling 1958 sixpences from a Commonwealth Bank "mint roll": https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/262751740955

The RAM used to make its own rolls, for distributing through the bank system; from 1966 through to the late 1980s, you could get both Reserve Bank rolls, and RAM rolls (at this stage, the RBA rolls were generally re-circulated coinage with virtually no mint coins present - coin guides published at the time warned people not to confuse the two roll types). I think the logic behind the RAM doing its own rolls was to save on double-handling. As for the reason for their discontinuing, I can't recall if it was the operating and maintenance costs of the rolling machine, or that the Mint needed the space for something else. Banks at the time were also switching away from rolls, to plastic bags, greatly reducing the demand for rolled coins.