British crown coin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The crown, originally known as the "crown of the double rose", was an English coin introduced as part of King Henry VIII's monetary reform of 1526.
The first coins were minted in gold, and the first silver crowns were not produced until the reign of King Edward VI. Although many people believe that all crowns were minted in silver, until the time of the Commonwealth of England it was common for crowns to be minted in gold in some quantity. No crowns were minted in the reign of Mary I, but silver as well as gold coins were minted in the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I.
Crowns were minted in all reigns between Elizabeth I of England and Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, the last being produced in 1981. With its large size many of the latter coins were primarily commemoratives. The 1965 issue carried the image of Winston S. Churchill on the reverse, the first time a non-monarch was ever placed on a British coin.
The crown was worth 5 shillings, or 60 pre-decimal pennies, until decimalisation, and was also the basis of other denominations such as the half crown and double crown. Coins of the same size are still produced, but have a face value of five pounds.
The crown coin was nicknamed the dollar, but is not to be confused with the British trade dollar that circulated in the Orient.
[edit] Changing values
The face or denominational value of the crown remained as five shillings from 1544 to 1965. For most of this period there was no mark of value on the coin. From 1927 to 1937 the word "CROWN" appears, and from 1951 to 1960 this was changed to "FIVE SHILLINGS". After decimalisation in 1971, the face value kept its five shillings equivalent at 25 new pence, later simply 25 pence, although the face value is not shown on any of these issues.
From 1990, the crown was re-tariffed at five pounds (£5), probably in view of its relatively large size compared with its face value, and taking into consideration its production costs, and the Royal Mint's profits on sales of commemorative coins. While this change was understandable, it has brought with it a slight confusion, and the popular misbelief that all crowns have a five pound face value, including the pre-1990 ones.
Although all "normal" issues since 1951 have been composed of cupro-nickel, special proof versions have been produced for sale to collectors, and as gift items, in silver, gold, and occasionally platinum.
The fact that gold £5 crowns are now produced means that there are two different strains of five pound gold coins, namely crowns and what are now termed "quintuple sovereigns" for want of a more concise term.
Numismatically, the term "crown-sized" is used generically to describe large silver or cupro-nickel coins of about 40 mm in diameter. Most Commonwealth countries still issue crown-sized coins for sale to collectors.
New Zealand fifty-cent pieces, and Australia's previously round but now dodecagonal fifty-cent piece, although valued at five shillings in predecimal accounting, are now both smaller than crown pieces.
[edit] Mintages
| Edward VII | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1902 |
256,020
|
|||
| George V | ||||
| 1927 |
15,030 (prf)
|
1932 |
2,395
|
|
| 1928 |
9,034
|
1933 |
7,132
|
|
| 1929 |
4,994
|
1934 |
932
|
|
| 1930 |
4,847
|
1935 |
714,769
|
|
| 1931 |
4,056
|
1936 |
2,473
|
|
| George VI | ||||
| 1937 |
418,699
|
1951 |
1,983,540
|
|
| Elizabeth II | ||||
| 1953 |
5,962,621
|
1965 |
19,640,000
|
|
| 1960 |
1,024,038
|
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Current | One penny · Two pence · Five pence · Ten pence · Twenty pence · Fifty pence · One pound · Two pounds |
| Commemorative | Twenty-five pence · Five pounds |
| Withdrawn (decimal) | Half penny |
| Withdrawn (pre-decimal) | Farthing · Halfpenny · Penny · Threepence · Sixpence · One shilling · Two shillings · Half crown · Crown · Half sovereign · Sovereign · Guinea |
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Current | Czech koruna · Danish krone · Estonian kroon · Faroese króna · Icelandic króna · Norwegian krone · Slovak koruna · Swedish krona |
| Defunct | Austro-Hungarian krone · Bohemian and Moravian koruna · Czechoslovak koruna · Hungarian korona · Slovak koruna (WWII) · Yugoslav krone |
| As a denomination | British crown |
