The 'Unicorn' Penny

A Lost Penny Variety Rediscovered

For decades, the 1931 “Unicorn Penny” existed only as a footnote in early numismatic catalogues - a variety so rare that almost no collector ever encountered one. This website presents the most complete and transparent body of research ever assembled on the subject, combining historical scholarship with high-resolution forensic analysis to re-examine one of Australia’s most elusive coins.

Here, you will find the full story: how the variety first entered the numismatic record, how it vanished from collector consciousness, and how its existence has since been confirmed through modern study. You will also see the detailed physical evidence - microscopic imagery, die comparisons, and structural analysis - that supports the authenticity of the Unicorn Penny.

The Rise, Disappearance, and Return of P31D Variety

In 1964, John Dean published the first formal catalogue of Australian coin varieties. Among his observations was a fourth variety of the 1931 penny, designated P31D, defined by its curved-base letters on the reverse. Dean noted that only six examples were known. Their extreme scarcity meant few collectors ever saw one, and the listing soon became something of a quiet legend.

In the years that followed, persistent collectors searching for Dean’s elusive P31D instead discovered a different rare 1931 penny - the “Dropped 1” Indian-die variety with flat-base letters. Around fifty examples of this flat-base type have been identified to date. Because it was findable, it gradually replaced Dean’s curved-base P31D in common numismatic practice.

Dean’s original curved-base variety slipped into obscurity, and eventually many experts assumed it had never truly existed. Thus began the mythology of the “Unicorn Penny” - a variety spoken of, doubted, and largely forgotten.

The mystery endured for decades, until 2019, when research published in the Journal of the Numismatic Association of Australia (see article) confirmed that Dean’s notes had been accurate. 

Today, nine surviving P31D curved-base pennies have been identified across Australia (see the Official Unicorn Penny Register) - restoring this long-lost variety to the historical record.

Origins of the Unicorn Penny

Reconstructing the 1931 Penny Production Timeline

The story of the Unicorn Penny is inseparable from the unusual, and at times chaotic, minting history of the 1931 Australian penny.

This history has been pieced together over many years using materials compiled by a small group of advanced numismatic researchers - most notably W. J. Mullett - a leading historian, whose documentation of mint practices provides the essential foundation for all later analysis of numeral punches and hub diagnostics, and John Crellin, who carefully reconstructed the likely sequence of die and obverse/reverse combinations used during 1931.

Their combined observations provide the clearest framework we have for understanding how the four principal 1931 varieties came into existence - and how the Unicorn Penny may have arisen during a short-lived and what can be described as a poorly documented attempt by the Melbourne Mint to correct a serious minting defect.

Drawing on their research, the production timeline can be summarised as follows:

Why This Timeline Matters

The reconstructed timeline of the 1931 penny reveals far more than just four die combinations. It tells a story - a story of a Mint that suddenly found itself confronting a serious problem, then scrambling to fix it under pressure, and ultimately resorting to improvised, short-term solutions before settling on a final, stable configuration.

To appreciate how the Unicorn Penny fits into this sequence, we need to walk through what the Mint was actually doing during those few turbulent weeks.

Opening Run and Unexplained Halt

After completing its relatively short run of the first variety coin (±46,000 pieces struck with an Indian obverse and  Birmingham reverse die), the Melbourne Mint produced no further pennies for roughly three weeks

When production resumed, the Mint had abruptly switched to an English obverse and London reverse die.  The new reverse die (which was likely based on a '193_' blank die recorded at the mint in November 1930) displayed a misaligned 'dropped' right-most numeral '1' as well as other flaws - resulting in the second variety coin. 

Exactly, what occurred during the latter half of August 1931 to force this sudden change of reverse die remains unknown, yet by the first week of September, the Mint proceeded to strike approximately 300,000 coins despite the obvious flaw.

Gaps in the Official Record

It is noteworthy that neither Mullett nor other commentators have identified any references in the Mint’s official records acknowledging the conspicuous date-numeral defect introduced by the London reverse die. This omission is not entirely surprising however; record-keeping at the Melbourne Mint was never exhaustive, and the Mint was not known for documenting its mishaps. Indeed, the historical record is replete with conspicuous gaps such as the unrecorded release of the 1930 penny into circulation and the still-mysterious origin of the 1933/2 overdate.

Awareness of the Defect and Chaotic Adjustments

It would, however, be untenable to assume that the Mint remained unaware of the prominent “dropped 1” defect that appeared in the second variety. The flaw was so striking that by the second week of September 1931, the Mint was evidently attempting to address it.  As the timeline shows, barely a week after adopting the flawed London reverse die, the Mint replaced the English obverse with an Indian obverse - an abrupt decision that suggests considerable disorder. This change produced the third variety - essentially a “nil-run” coin (of which about 50 are known to exist) struck with the Indian obverse paired with the defective London reverse.  Only a few days later, the Mint abandoned this experiment and reverted to the English obverse combined with the Birmingham reverse die, thereby creating the fourth variety and resolving the problem of the malformed date numerals.

These timeline observations support the view that during the first half of September 1931, the Mint was actively - and urgently - attempting remedial steps that gave rise to the sequence of 1931 varieties. 

The Dropped “1” and the Worn “193_” Hub

As for the “dropped 1” seen on the second and third varieties, it is beyond doubt that it was punched into a “193_” type blank hub. The leftmost “1” on this hub shows a distinct “blunt nose,” while the dropped “1” itself has a “pointy nose.” The Mint’s records confirm that this hub was derived from a master die supplied earlier from London, with the right-most "1" most likely added by way of a hand punch technique used in preparing a new working die. 

Mullett also notes that this master die served as a source for numerous derivative hubs - likely leading to wear and distortion, which in turn produced the “blunt nose 1” and the “small-void 9.”

When attempting to address the numeral defects on the second variety, the Mint appears to have realised that hub distortion was the likely culprit. It would have become clear that derivatives of the “193_” blank hub could no longer be used and that an alternative die source was urgently needed. The most obvious option was a redundant London-type reverse die containing correctly formed numerals.

Turning to an Alternative Die Source

It is important to emphasise that in early September 1931, the Mint was ostensibly attempting to produce an improved version of the second variety 1931 penny.  This would explain why the alternative reverse die source also had to be of the London type (leading to the production of the third variety coin).  For some reason, it was ostensibly important for the Mint to adhere to its commitment of using a London reverse die and to retain the integrity of the original coin while attempting to improve it.  Otherwise, instead of trying to correct the date numerals on the London reverse, it would have moved swiftly towards production using the Birmingham die instead - which it ultimately did. 

However, in its attempt to resolve the London reverse die defects, it is submitted that the Mint likely chose a relief copy of a 1929 penny London reverse hub as an alternative reverse die source.  This die possessed a correctly shaped leftmost “1” and “9.”  The rightmost “29” would then have been ground away to allow for the insertion of “31.” However, since the spacing between the remaining “1” and “9” in the resulting “19_ _” hub was wider than that seen on the faulty “193_” master die - and thus inconsistent with the very coin the Mint was trying to refine - the Mint was compelled to grind away the “1” as well.  This left a blank “_9_ _” incuse hub into which individual numerals were to be pressed.

Hand-Punched Numerals and the Creation of the Unicorn Penny

It is possible, that at this very time, while production of the second and third variety coins continued, the Mint briefly experimented with the idea of achieving an improved English reverse die by transplanting individual date numerals (i.e. the leftmost “1,” the “3” and the dropped “1”).  The donor numerous were likely taken from either the second variety coin or its precursor relief hub, and transplanted into the “_9_ _” blank incuse hub, using hand-made punches. This would have been a highly unconventional process with which the Mint had little experience - leading to an overall botched result.

That botched coin was the Unicorn Penny, which presented with a correctly formed “9”, an adjusted “dropped 1” (more upright), and two more transplanted numerals - the left-most "1" and the "3".  Interestingly, no obvious attempt was made to correct the relatively minor defect in the form of the “blunt nose 1.” This defect was seemingly overshadowed by the more significant problems observed in the other date numerals. 

Sub-strains of the Unicorn Penny show evidence of trials using different hand punches to create the date numeral “3”.

A Failed Improvement and a Return to the Birmingham Die

It is important to remember that the above experiments were most likely performed within a very limited time period and under considerable pressure to resume penny production as quickly as possible.  Consequently, the attempt to produce an “improved” second variety coin had, by all reasonable standards, failed. This is apparent from the numerous irregularities seen in the date numerals of the Unicorn Pennies.

Ultimately, the rush to return to the presses meant that the Mint had little option but to abandon its attempt to improve the 1931 London reverse penny, end the imperfect run of the second variety coin, and resign to the considerably easier solution of producing a new 1931 penny by reverting to the Birmingham reverse die (i.e. the fourth variety coin).

Legacy of a Shambolic Episode

The few Unicorn Pennies that were produced during this brief period remain as a remnant of what can probably be best described as a rather shambolic episode in the history of the Melbourne Mint. At the same time, it can be said that the Unicorn Penny shines a light onto the mindset and resolve of the Mint’s employees during arguably one of the most challenging periods in the nation’s history.

Accusations of Forgery

The above hypothesis on the origins of the Unicorn Penny - like many reconstructions involving the Melbourne Mint - cannot rely on surviving documentation. As with numerous Australian pre-decimal anomalies, gaps in the archival record require us to piece together a most-likely sequence of events using physical evidence and comparative diagnostics.

Understandably, some sceptics argue that a coin showing evidence of numeral transplantation and hand-worked surfaces could just as easily be the product of a forger, rather than the remnants of a hurried mint-floor intervention. A forger, they say, might have taken a 1929 Indian-obverse penny, removed the “29,” and inserted “31” to imitate the highly elusive 1931 Indian-obverse Dropped 1 penny - of which only about fifty are known.

It is a simple theory, and at first glance an appealing one. But once the full body of evidence is examined, the forgery hypothesis collapses. 

Before turning to the physical diagnostics themselves, we must first consider the coin’s credibility when measured against the very idea that it was intended as a fake Indian-obverse Dropped 1.

Historical Documentation

The suggestion that the Unicorn Penny is a modern forgery designed to imitate the Indian-obverse Dropped 1 variety overlooks a crucial fact: the Unicorn Penny was already known and documented in the 1960s by John Dean - well before the Indian-obverse Dropped 1 variety was identified.

In his Australian Coin Varieties Catalogue (Hawthorn Press, 1964), Dean recorded six examples of a 1931 penny with curved-base letters on the reverse - a description that corresponds exactly to the defining diagnostic of what is now called the "Unicorn Penny".

This chronology matters. As the Indian-obverse Dropped 1 later gained collector attention, prestige, and monetary value, Dean’s curved-base variety slipped quietly into obscurity. It never acquired commercial significance, and therefore, presented no incentive for anyone to invest the extensive labour required to manufacture a high-quality forgery that the market and the numismatic community neither valued nor recognised.

Wrong Donor Coin

If indeed a modern forger intended to mimic the highly valuable Indian-obverse Dropped 1, they would have selected a flat-base-letter donor reverse - not a curved-base-letter reverse, which contradicts the accepted diagnostics of the Indian-obverse Dropped 1 variety.  There are many Indian obverse pennies with flat based letters available to serve as donor coins, e.g. the 1915, 1916, 1917 pennies, just to name a few.   

Therefore, using the wrong donor coin such as the 1929 (curved-base letter obverse) to produce a forgery of the Indian-obverse Dropped 1 that contained a flat based letter obverse is not a trivial discrepancy; it is a fundamental one given the intricacies, risks and effort involved in transplanting up to three date numerals. 

This idea points away from a modern fabrication and back toward an earlier, undocumented mint intervention, exactly as Dean’s early catalogue suggested.

Alignment Issue

In addition to the curved-base letters, a forger attempting to imitate the Indian-obverse Dropped 1 variety would almost certainly prioritise the coin’s most defining feature: the sharply lowered leftmost “1.” Yet the Unicorn Penny shows only a modest irregularity in the position of the leftmost numeral - nothing resembling the dramatic drop seen on genuine Indian-obverse Dropped 1 examples.

This makes the forgery hypothesis fundamentally inconsistent. A competent forger capable of replicating minute details - such as adjusting the bluntness of the nose that features in the leftmost “1” or fine-tuning its spatial relationship to the adjacent “9” - would not then inexplicably fail to faithfully reproduce the single diagnostic that determines whether the imitation would be believed.

It would be illogical for a forger to invest labour in subtle, microscopically accurate modifications while neglecting the one feature that defines the variety they are supposedly trying to counterfeit.  Conversely, it is entirely logical for the Melbourne Mint to attempt precisely such an adjustment: to correct the dropped "1" numeral and restore it to a more acceptable alignment.

Provenance

One known specimen of the Unicorn Penny has a well-documented provenance tracing it back to the Coote family of New South Wales, and provides a rare and highly instructive perspective.

The collector - Fred Coote - recalls that his father (Frederick Edmund Coote) - a milkman by trade and a Sergeant with the Royal Australian Air Force during WWII - maintained a birthday tradition for his children. Each year on 1 July, he gave Fred a 1933 penny, matching his birth year. Fred’s sister, Heather Margaret, received a 1931 penny each year on 23 August.

Heather was born in 1930, but because their father could not find a 1930 penny in circulation, he substituted the next available date: 1931. According to Fred, their father continued this tradition throughout Fred's and Margaret's childhood, which fixes the latest year of these gifted coins to no later than 1949.

This predates widespread awareness or classification of the 1931 Indian-obverse Dropped 1 by well over a decade. Even if we assume the hypothetical scenario that the father continued to pick out 1931 pennies from circulation in later years, this could not have occurred past 1966, when pennies were withdrawn with the introduction of decimal currency.  At that time, the 1931 Indian-obverse Dropped 1 was certainly not yet regarded as a valuable variety that was worthy of forging.   

And much later, when the 1931 Indian-obverse Dropped 1 did become known as a desirable variety, it is implausible that, on a milkman’s pension, Heather's father would have purchased an extremely rare 1931 penny variety to gift to his daughter.

The implication is straightforward:

• No rational forger in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, or early 1960s would have invested significant labour in manufacturing a speciality error that hardly anyone knew existed and for which certainly no market yet existed.

• This provenance, therefore, strongly supports the Unicorn Penny’s authenticity and its origin as an early, obscure mint anomaly rather than a later fabrication.  

Motivation and Economics

Producing a Unicorn-type alteration would be extraordinarily labour-intensive. Even assuming a 1929 donor penny (consistent with the likely hub used by the Mint), three numerals would need to be removed and transplanted from another coin. The surfaces would have to match with near-perfect precision, and the risk of failure at any stage is extremely high.

Against this backdrop, an obvious question arises: why are several known examples of the Unicorn Penny found in relatively low grade - often only Good to Fine condition? Such coins have modest resale value, even if they were mistakenly accepted as genuine 1931 Indian-obverse Dropped 1 pennies. In other words, the enormous labour required would yield almost no financial incentive for a forger. That is, the economics of producing such low-grade coins simply don't add up. 

Alternative Targets

Meanwhile, a forger seeking profit has far more attractive targets to aim at.  For example:

• the 1930 penny (only two digits to alter, vastly higher reward)

• the 1920 dot above bottom scroll (simple addition of a dot)

• the 1923 halfpenny (single numeral transplantation)

• the 1946 K.G. (addition of a single dot)

• many others

Against this backdrop, forging a labour-heavy, low-condition donor coin makes no rational sense whatsoever.

Illogical Choices

A forger attempting to mimic the 1931 Indian-obverse Dropped 1 would, in theory, remove the “29” from a 1929 donor penny and transplant a “31” in its place. This approach could plausibly deceive an inexperienced buyer - someone unlikely to examine the shape of the nose on the leftmost “1,” the spacing between that numeral and the adjacent “9,” or the curved-base letters on the obverse.

But beyond this, there is no rational reason for a forger to also remove the leftmost “1,” nor to deliberately misalign the final “1” - the single feature that defines the Indian-obverse Dropped 1 identity. Those extra steps would only make sense if the forger intended to deceive not just amateurs, but experts. Yet if that was the goal, it becomes inexplicable that they would overlook the most obvious diagnostics, including:

• the curved-base letter obverse, and

• the incorrect alignment of the dropped numeral “1” itself.

These inconsistencies make little sense in a forgery scenario. They are, however, entirely compatible with mixed numeral punches, emergency die corrections, and hurried remedial work at the Mint.

Scientific Analysis

A forger could, in theory, be incompetent - but a forger with minimal economic motive, working on a coin nobody yet cared about, investing maximum labour on a low-grade host, using the wrong donor coin and botching the only profitable diagnostic, is not a serious hypothesis.

Microscopic and structural examination shows compression, metal displacement, and fusion characteristic of genuine punching - not welding, gluing, or modern fabrication.  These signatures align with die-repair or hub-modification activity, not amateur counterfeiting.  This evidence is examined in considerable detail in the relevant sections of this website.  

Purpose of this Website

This website was created because the 'forgery argument' persists in the absence of a single, centralised, evidence-based, scholarly reference hub.

Here you will find the most complete, transparent, and meticulously documented body of research ever assembled on the Unicorn Penny - covering its physical characteristics, minting context, chronological sub-strains, microscopic evidence, provenance, comparative diagnostics, discourse, and historical references.

Each section of this site examines a different strand of the evidence and scholarly debate, allowing collectors, researchers, and sceptics alike to follow the data where it leads.

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The contents of this website are protected by copyright law.  Copyright in this material resides with Dr. Y. Rapoport B.Sc SJD