The global existence of mass-conserving weak solutions to the Safronov–Dubovskiǐ coagulation equation is shown for the coagulation kernels satisfying at most linear growth for large sizes. In contrast to previous works, the proof mainly relies on the de la Vallée–Poussin theorem, which only requires the finiteness of the first moment of the initial condition. By showing the necessary regularity of solutions, it is shown that the weak solutions constructed herein are indeed classical solutions. Under additional restrictions on the initial data, the uniqueness of solutions is also shown. Finally, the continuous dependence on the initial data and the large-time behavior of solutions are also addressed