Crown
The crown is a historic British coin worth 5 shillings or 60 pence or a quarter of a pound .
The coin was introduced in the course of the currency reform by Henry VIII in 1526. The crown was initially a gold coin and had a fine weight of 2.85 grams with a rough weight of 3.11 grams. Due to a progressive deterioration in the gold content, the crown was replaced by the guinee in 1661 .
The first silver crowns were made during the reign of Edward VI. minted and had a fineness of 28.546 grams, similar to the German thaler . From 1816, when the British coin system was standardized, it was 26.166 grams with a weight of 28.276 grams and a diameter of 38.61 mm. As with all silver coins , only 500/1000 parts of silver were used from 1920, and from 1947 the crown was minted as a copper-nickel coin.
Until 1625 the obverse showed the king on horseback, the reverse the country shield under a cross. Since Charles II the front has been the bust of the monarch. Since 1818 the back has had the stamp of the Italian Benedetto Pistrucci (1783–1855), who depicts St. George fighting the dragon. The artistic motif is still used for the sovereign , a British gold coin, to this day. All crowns that were made during the reign of George III. (until 1820) and Georg IV. (1820–1830) as well as from 1887 to 1902 and from 1937 and 1951 bear the motif.
The crown was not issued annually as a large coin, but traditionally always in the coronation year of a new monarch.
The minting of the crown was discontinued in 1968 as part of the decimalization of the English coin system, but since 1972 a 25-pence coin without denomination has been minted on special occasions, which is commonly referred to as the crown (e.g. on the occasion of the silver jubilee of Elizabeth II ) .
A coin minted from 1549 and weighing 14.138 g was called the Half Crown from 1893 .
The Cromwellcrown with the bust of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell comes from the short time of the English Republic .
