Victoriana

Another foray into Victorian coinage. This is an 1887 silver crown which was worth 5/- (5 shillings). Now 25p. On the reverse there's just a Saint George on horseback slaying the dragon together with the date. I find these are lovely coins to hold in your hand and wonder about all the transactions it was involved in. Things went downhill when they started issuing commemmorative "crowns" - remember the Churchill crowns? Not made of silver and although in theory they could be used as currency (I was once in a casino in Porth (Wales) which gave these out in the winnings to encourage people to place bigger bets) most people saved them so they must have made a lot of money for the mint. A bit like the way the Royal Mail issues commemmorative stamps; collectors pay a lot of money for a bit of paper which costs zilch to make and hoard it away.