1931 florin

The 1931 florins

Characteristics

Designation
F31M.2A

Mint
Melbourne

Mint mark
None

Mintage
3,129,682

**Characteristics**
Designation	F31M.2A
Mint	Melbourne
Mint mark	None
Mintage	3,129,682

This is the second most common of the George V florins. Only the 1936 florin was minted in larger numbers.

John Dean lists two varieties of this florin, one with flat-base lettering on the reverse legend, the other with curved-base lettering. Robert Clarke offers a very terse description of a variety:

"Short figures in date"

I believe these two descriptions refer to the same (variety) coin and that the "short date" was the result of the same sort of die/punch distortion that caused the fishtailed legend. There are three observations to be made from a study of 1931 florins:

The vast majority of 1931 florins do not have fishtailed lettering,
All the "short date" coins have fishtailed letters and conversely all the coins with fishtailed letters have short dates,
The final 1 in the short date has a "normal" shape just like the 1s in a normal 1931 florin.

This leads me to the conjecture that the variety coin was made from a late derivative tool while the main production issue was made with dies remastered from the 1923 tools. That is definitely a subject for further investigation.

High-grade forgeries of the 1931 florin exist.

Reverses of 1931 florin

F31M.2A.1

Normal date. See below for detail.

F31M.2A.2

Short date, "curved-base letters". See below for detail.

An example of a "Manders" forgery. See separate page for more information.

**Reverses of 1931 florin**
	F31M.2A.1 Normal date. See below for detail.
	F31M.2A.2 Short date, "curved-base letters". See below for detail.
	An example of a "Manders" forgery. See separate page for more information.

Close-up views of the date and fishtailed lettering

F31M.2A.1

31 tilted strongly to the left with the 1 close to the 3. Final 1 aligned directly over a gap between rim beads.

F31M.2A.2

3 upright, final 1 not so tilted and further from the 3. Date numerals are not so tall. Final 1 aligned (almost) directly over a rim bead.

Heavy fishtailing on the legend of the "short date" florin. The short date is likely to have been produced by the same process that fishtailed the letters, i.e. distortion of a working punch or of the die from which it was derived.

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