Double Sovereign Coin Mintages and Dates

Synopsis

This double Sovereign blog covers the brief history of the double Sovereign, mintages and dates. (1820-2022). Summarised in an accessible table that can be used as a reference whenever there are new double Sovereign coin releases.

Double Sovereign coins were introduced in 1489 under the reign of King Henry VII (1485 - 1509). These coins were produced using the same dies as full Sovereigns, but weighed more and contained more gold. In 1553 a double Sovereign coin struck for Edward VI. As these coins are extremely rare, they will not appear in the double Sovereign summary table below.

The 2022 Gold double Sovereign features a one-off Royal Coat of Arms Reverse design that celebrates Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. We don't expect mintage figures for this coin to be released for several years. 

The 2026 Gold double Sovereign features a 'yellow gold' finish of traditional Sovereigns, moving away from the rose gold of recent years. The 2026 double Sovereign also includes new security features such as the micro-text engraving to quote the motto of the Order of the Garter, 'HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE'. 

A full Sovereign weighs 7.98g and contains 0.2354 troy ounces of gold. It has a diameter of 22mm. A double Sovereign weighs twice the weight of a Sovereign (15.98g) and contains 0.4708 troy ounces of gold. It has a diameter of 28.4mm.

Our double Sovereign summary table (1820-2023) contains 62 double Sovereign's issues with a total mintage of 339,893. The number may in fact be much larger than this. Recent mintage figures have not yet been released by the Royal Mint, and some of the older coin mintages were not recorded. Comparing this to the full Sovereign (introduced in 1817), there are over 1 billion+ Sovereigns that have been minted compared to 333,893 double Sovereigns which means double Sovereigns are over 2900 times rarer.