Canadian 5 Crowns

The changing portraits are primarily intended to portray the Queen gracefully ageing, rather than to showcase the crown jewels. Which crown was used (and there are dozen or more of them in the British crown jewels) was largely up to the Queen and the artist.

The coinage portraits are often referred to by their designers: the earliest is the Mary Gillick portrait, then Arnold Machin, Dora dePedery-Hunt and Susanna Blunt. The last two were home-grown in Canada, by Canadian artists; the first two were Commonwealth-wide designs by British artists.

In Australia, we've used the same portraits as those found on British coinage: the Mary Gillick, Arnold Machin, Raphael Maklouf and Ian Rank-Broadley portraits.

The Maklouf and dePederey-Hunt portraits look very similar. In my opinion, the Susanna Blunt portrait looks much better than the IRB portrait we use down here; the latter makes Her Majesty look a bit "jowly" - kind of like the coinage of her distant ancestor, King George III.

G'day, I also have an interest in military medals. If you look at the medals issued during Her Majesty's 55-year reign, some different portraits have been used.
SAP: having seen H.M. on TV recently, I think the current portrait misrepresents her, as you say.
And regarding KG3: as if the portraits which represented him as a Roman Gladiator weren't silly enough, the 1806~07 coppers are more caricature than portrait.
Peter in Darwin

G'day ElleKitty,
go to ebay.co.uk, and search "1804" under coins. You're looking for the silver dollars issued that year by the Bank of England - in fact they were overstruck on Spanish coins. You'll find several.
You'll note that H.M.'s toga is gathered over his shoulder. I suppose I was a bit unkind to assert that he was a gladiator: but he certainly seems to be presented to us in the classical style of Rome.
Peter in Oz

G'day, After 1751 no crowns were issued for 67 years. Due to the wars against France and the United States there was an acute shortage of silver. A number of Spanish 8 real pieces had been captured and circulated unofficially. In 1797 the need for a crown sized coin was becoming very evident, so the decision was made to stamp the Spanish coins with an oval stamp bearing the head of George III. These coins were valued at 4s9d, thus bringing comments such as "Two Kings' heads are not worth a Crown". Later an octagonal stamp was brought into use. A few US dollars were counterstamped, but these are very scarce and command high prices.
In 1804 the Spanish dollars were overstruck by the Bank of England with a portrait of the King on the obverse and Britannia on the reverse, with an inscription BANK OF ENGLAND 1804 FIVE SHILLINGS DOLLAR. It is not uncommon to be able to identify the original coin that had been overstruck. There are several varieties.

To think, in 1804, there was nearly a world currency. One of the Colonial Governors in Australia adopted the dollar as the unit of accounting, but a subsequent Governor reverted to the British pound a few years later.

When I was a boy, in Oz, "dollar" still meant "five shillings". This caused a lot of confusion in 1966, when we converted to decimal currency, and the new dollar was equated to 10 shillings.
My mother cited this as another example of the stupidity of the government at that time.
It wasn't until I got serious about coin collecting that I found out about the BoE Dollar, and realized that my mother's use of "dollar" had a basis in history. Silly me for ever doubting her.

Regarding price: these are regularly on the market. If you keep looking, and are patient, you'll find a reasonable example at a reasonable price. I don't chase UNCs; and I don't begrudge a 200-year old coin a bit of wear. I picked up a pleasing example for gbp 43.00 last year.

An aside: while researching an old statute book, I found an Act, 44 Geo III, cap 71, of 10 July 1804 "To prevent the counterfeiting of the new silver dollars issued by the Bank of England", and which prescribed the death penalty for forging these dollars.

Peter in Oz

Wow great info everyone , Thank you for sharing.