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These half sovereigns were only issued in very small numbers. [11] In 1604, James I reduced the weight of gold coinage, and renamed sovereigns and half sovereigns as unites and half unites, in honour of his uniting the two kingdoms on the island of Great Britain. [12] The renamed half sovereign was thereafter replaced by the half guinea. [7]
The sovereign is a British gold coin with a nominal value of one pound sterling (£1) and contains 0.2354 troy ounces (113.0 gr; 7.32 g) of pure gold.Struck since 1817, it was originally a circulating coin that was accepted in Britain and elsewhere in the world; it is now a bullion coin and is sometimes mounted in jewellery.
The first sovereigns were of 23-carat (95.83%) gold and weighed 240 grains, or half a troy ounce. King Henry VIII lessened the gold content to 22 carats, or 91.67%. Although this was part of what is called The Great Debasement, 22 carats became the gold coin standard in both the British Isles and later the United States, known as crown gold.
The half laurel was the third English gold coin with a value of ten shillings produced during the reign of King James I. It was named after the laurel that the king is portrayed as wearing on his head, but it is considerably poorer in both quality and style than both the half sovereign and the double crown which preceded it. The coin was ...
Half sovereigns were struck at Sydney in each year, and at Melbourne in 1893, 1896, 1899 and 1900. [49] In 1899, a third Australian branch mint began to strike sovereigns. This was the Perth Mint, inaugurated on 20 June 1899. [50] It struck sovereigns in 1899, 1900 and 1901 and half sovereigns in 1899 and 1900. [49] Queen Victoria died in ...
The Royal Mint realised there was a market for sovereign coins, and began to sell them to collectors at well over face or bullion value. [41] Beginning in 1980, five-pound gold coins were sold every year, except 1983, sometimes in a four-piece proof set with the half sovereign, sovereign and double sovereign, and sometimes sold individually.
Some 1893 sovereigns were struck with Boehm's design at the Australian branch mints, [61] and half sovereigns of that type were minted both at London and in Australia. [62] Of the silver coinage, some 1893 sixpences and threepence with Boehm's obverse were struck at London, [63] but otherwise, the Jubilee coinage was at an end. [10] [64]
Such problems were less acute with the sovereign, for which demand continued high as a world-wide trade coin, whereas the half sovereign tended to remain in Britain. In 1884, the Gladstone government proposed to reduce the amount of gold in the half sovereign by a tenth, rendering it a token coin, but the change was abandoned. [10]
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