Post A Crown!

The Kingdom of Denmark-Norway was administered by Danish monarchs during the two kingdoms' personal union of 1660-1814. Norway maintained its own coinage during this period and the specie daler was the "crown" equivalent during the reign of Christian VII. This 1777 specie daler was minted at the former Royal Norwegian Mint in Kongsberg.

Many, really nice and interesting crown-size coins have been posted in this thread.

Here is one of my german city talers:
Hessen, Frankfurt, Reichsstadt, 1311-1806.
City Konventionstaler 1772, mintmaster Philipp Christian Bunsen, View of the Main River.

GermanicV,

That is a Beautiful coin,

I have a lot of European coins that are works of art but most are copper or small size silver like francs centimes

Both are lovely.

The design on this British South African crown would later be re-used on the famous Krugerrand.


This one's a bit small, but I think it's still big enough for this thread - just a Canadian silver dollar. This one was cut out of a proof-like set and it commemorates the conferences at Charlottetown and Quebec City in 1864 which led to the creation of Canada three years later.

These are some absolutely beautiful coins. But by "crown," we are clearly not just talking about British coinage. What makes a crown? Is it the size of the coin?

Thanks JBuck!

One other question. Forgive me, but I am new to this, but how are you all getting these fantastic close up photographs of your coins? What are you using?

I just use an everyday flatbed scanner - I only get away with it because I crop all my images properly. I have one of those "high volume" collections so I don't think I'd have the time to take two pictures of every cheap coin in my collection anyway - better to just drop a whole batch in the scanner at once.

Here are two actual British crowns worth 5 shillings.


United Kingdom, 5 shillings, 1951. This is a one-year commemorative issued for the 1951 "Festival of Britain", one of those big events from decades past that left almost no lasting relics. In 1851, Britain hosted the Great Exhibition, the first World's Fair. So after 100 years, the decision was made to try it again, as recovery from WWII was progressing fairly well. And hey, there's nothing like a huge expensive festival to really show a nation off - too bad most of the exhibition grounds have been demolished since then. It's the same deal in Montreal - the 1967 Expo attracted, over a few months, a greater number of visitors than the entire population of Canada. But all you'll see of it now is the big glass dome and a few Expo logos pressed into concrete around the city.

Incidentally, this crown is the cheapest way to get your hands on a British coin featuring the classic Pistrucci St. George and the Dragon design, a coin design that's almost 200 years old (it's from 1817) yet is still being used today. It is usually seen on gold sovereigns, and most recently it was used on a 20-pound coin - but that coin (naturally) costs 20 pounds. It was also used on older crowns, but those are made of .925 silver so they are also quite expensive. So there's some budget collecting advice - although seeing some of the coins posted here, I don't think you guys will need it...


United Kingdom, 5 shillings, 1953. This commemorates the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Now, in most Commonwealth realms, the Queen is absolutely required to appear on one side of the coin. Here in Canada, we don't dare to mess with the Queen, so the exact same portrait of her appears on every single new Canadian coin, circulating or non-circulating, commemorative or definitive. Other countries get a little more creative, so as to have more leeway to produce NIFC junk (think Tuvalu, Cook Islands, Niue...), and sometimes they shrink the portrait. But it's only in the U.K. where they get REALLY creative and portray the Queen doing anything interesting at all. Here she is on her horse! How exciting.