Australia Sovereign (Dragon Slayer) 1871 to 1887

These beautiful British sovereigns were struck in Australian mints and bear M (Melbourne) or S (Sydney) mint marks under the queen's portrait.

If your coin lacks the M or S mint mark, it was minted in Great Britain and you should click to this CoinQuest page for information. This page applies only to Australian coins, that is, coins with M or S mint marks.

Gold sovereigns contain 0.236 troy ounces of gold and they can never be worth less than the current price of bold multiplied by 0.236. Use web sites such as kitco.com to find the current price of gold. It changes every day.

Say, gold is trading at $1800 US dollars per troy ounce. The Base Value (BV) of an Australian sovereign is therefore 0.236 x 1800 = $425 US dollars. In addition to Base Value, coins in excellent numismatic (coin collector) condition gain premium value. Here is how this works for most dates of these Australian sovereigns:

worn: BV
average circulated: BV
well preserved BV + $50
fully uncirculated: BV + $300

Some dates and mint marks are more valuable than *common date* coins just quoted. In the list below, the values are for coins in well preserved condition.

1871S: BV + $1000
1872M: BV + $1300
1879S: BV + $1200
1883S: BV + $400
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