I know this is a nono on coins other than roman or ancients. But I polished one of these out. Went from dank to bright shiny penny.
I love Australian pennies but it's too bad about the condition. They seem like they are mostly 1943 and damaged. The one you polished is the B mintmark (which is actually shown by an I under the king. These were only made in 1942 and 43.
…To be clear, the “I” mintmark under the King represents the fact that the coin was produced at the Bombay Mint for the coin shown…Spark (As you can tell, I like Australian coins too!)
From Online Coin Club (onlinecoin.club)… @Hiddendragon was spot on. More info I read late last night: For the 1942 and 1943…the “I” under the king is considered an additional mintmark. It stands for “India”. But the actual mintmark is the preceding dot before the denomination…so that .PENNY. is indicating the coin having been produced at the Bombay Mint. For the 1942 Perth mintmark, it is called a “ Y dot Perth “. The actual mintmark is the tiny dot after the Y of the denomination… PENNY. There is no preceding dot. I find this fascinating historical numismatic lore. Helps one identify your actual coin and establish scarcity or rarity. And there’s lots more…check it out. …imo…Spark
I remember I thought I had a complete date set for the series and then I realized there were different mint marks and I still needed a bunch.
There's also a 1942 Bombay that's missing the "I" but has the two pellets, it's decently scarce. I have one somewhere.
