1981 5 Cent - How To Identify Which Mint They Came From?

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Author	Replies: 7 / Views: 17,119
ozcoins Pillar of the Community Australia 1005 Posts	Posted 10/08/2011 11:17 pm I know for the 1966 5 cent, it is possible to tell which mint they came from by the "short spine" and "long spine". The RAM site lists Royal Australian Mint Royal Canadian Mint Royal Mint, Llantrisant As all having made 5 cent coins in 1981. Is it possible to tell which mint the 1981 coins came from? Report this Post to the Staff

Enlil Pillar of the Community Australia 560 Posts	Posted 10/11/2011 12:55 am They say the canadian ones have a rounded edge, but realistically we do not know. Report this Post to the Staff
Mr T Pillar of the Community Australia 2180 Posts	Posted 10/28/2011 7:24 pm I think the difference should be similar to those of the 10c and 20c that year. Have a search of these forums, I remember seeing some comparison photos somewhere. I think at least one difference is the fishtailing on the obverse lettering, though I don't recall for which mint. Edited by Mr T 10/28/2011 7:26 pm Report this Post to the Staff
Mr T Pillar of the Community Australia 2180 Posts	Posted 10/28/2011 11:20 pm I found the thread about the differences between the 1981 10c pieces: https://goccf.com/t/61024 Report this Post to the Staff
eccentric New Member Australia 45 Posts	Posted 10/29/2011 09:34 am Here is a scan of the Canada 1981 5c piece. You can see the difference in the hair where the arrows indicate. It is not so easy to differentiate the Wales and Canberra coins - the best way is to get coins from a RAM roll and an RBA roll and compare. The RBA roll should have Canada or Wales coins as all RAM coins were usually released in RAM rolls. The Canada coins will have the hair shown in the scan. If the hair is different, the coins are probably from Wales. Here are scans of the Wales hair and text: And here are scans of the Canberra hair and text: As you can see, the differences between the Wales and Canberra coins are difficult to define. Generally speaking, I suppose you could say that the RAM coins have more definition - the lower hair curls in the Wales coins often lack distinct lines. However, as these images show, they can look very similar. Hope this helps! Edited by eccentric 10/29/2011 10:04 am Report this Post to the Staff
Australian coin Pillar of the Community Australia 1244 Posts	Posted 10/29/2011 7:53 pm Cool I have learnt a lot from your pics, wow they are really hard to spot the differences. The Canberra and Wales look so alike! Report this Post to the Staff
MobOfRoos Pillar of the Community Australia 762 Posts	Posted 10/29/2011 9:17 pm What ever happened to the good old days when they used to put clear mint marks on the coins like "m" or "h"? They seem to want to make it as difficult for collectors as possible ! Report this Post to the Staff
eccentric New Member Australia 45 Posts	Posted 10/29/2011 11:10 pm I agree - they could still make them difficult to find to increase interest, but have them there to allow some differentiation of the mints. Problems like this would then be able to be solved! I have taken another look at the RAM and Wales 1981 5c coins. The only difference that I could find that was repeated for each mint was the distance of the tiara from the rim. This may simply be a result of rim thickness but it does seem to occur in each coin I examined. The difference is very small and it would be better to have something more definite to go on. It would be hard to assign a single coin to a mint without another 'control' coin for comparison. But for what it's worth, I have included another couple of images for comparison. They may be of some use. This is the RAM coin - I feel the tiara is closer to the rim and the two upper 'pearls' are larger and not as sharp as those in the Wales coin. Note that the rim may be thicker. And this is the Wales coin - the tiara seems further from the rim and the 'pearls' are smaller and sharper. As you can see, the differences are not great. However, that's all I can offer for the moment. Report this Post to the Staff
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