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Australia Victoria Jubilee Head

1887-M Medium JEB Half Sovereign

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The 1887 half sovereigns come in a number of varieties distinguishable by the place of manufacture which can be Sydney, Melbourne or London and by the positioning of the obverse designer's initials, JEB. The mint can be determined by a mintmark , or absence of underneath the shield on the reverse. An S indicates this issue, the Sydney mint, an M indicates Melbourne while the London mint issues do not display a mintmark.

S mintmark for Sydney (this issue)

M mintmark for Melbourne

No mintmark on London mint issues

The three varieties of designer's initials are wide, medium and narrow, also known as Small Spread, Normal and Close respectively. The Wide spaced variety features short or crushed characters while the Medium and Narrow feature full sized characters with varying spacing between them.

Wide or Short Spread Spacing

Medium or Normal Spacing

Narrow or Close JEB

The Medium JEB is the toughest of all the 1887 varieties with an estimated survival count of about 300. Considering the mintage of 64,000, shared with the Young Head type and with two much more common Jubilee head varieties, it's not hard to imagine how so few have survived, they just weren't around to begin with. The type is scarce in any grade and gets particularly tough in mint state.