Australian 1977 Uncirculated Mint Set
The Set
The 1977 mint set marked the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, twenty-five years since her accession in February 1952. Following the pattern established by the 1970 Captain Cook set, the jubilee was celebrated on the fifty cent coin, with the remaining five denominations in standard designs. The six coins are housed unsealed in a plastic wallet, and the set was issued at $1.80 with a mintage of 128,010 - comfortably the largest of the early sets and more than five times the figure for 1974, the rarest year of the series.
The Jubilee Fifty Cent
The commemorative reverse centres on a wattle blossom, the floral emblem of Australia, encircled by twenty-five overlapping crowns representing each year of the reign. The coin was also struck in enormous numbers for circulation - some 25 million pieces - so the jubilee design is familiar to everyone who handled coins of the era. In the mint set the commemorative reverse appears with the Arnold Machin obverse portrait of the Queen whose reign it celebrates, and the remaining coins from the 1 cent to the 20 cent all carry their standard Stuart Devlin designs.
Sets of this era are often found with toned or tarnished coins, because the unsealed wallets left the bronze and cupro-nickel surfaces exposed to the air for nearly half a century. Examples with bright, untoned coins and intact wallets command a premium well beyond the modest catalogue value of the set as a whole.
| Set details | |
|---|---|
| Packaging | Plastic wallet, coins unsealed |
| Coins | 6 (1 cent to 50 cent) |
| Commemorative design | Silver Jubilee 50 cent |
| Mintage | 128,010 |
| Issue price | $1.80 |
| File:Australian UNC Set 1977 packaging.jpg | File:Australian UNC Set 1977 coins.jpg | The 1977 Silver Jubilee set in its plastic wallet. |
| File:Australian UNC Set 1977 Jubilee 50c.jpg | The Silver Jubilee fifty cent: a central wattle blossom surrounded by twenty-five crowns. |
