The wedding took place at Westminster Abbey on
the 20th November 1947, and was regarded as an important state occasion.
Much had changed in the twenty-five years which followed. King George
VI died in 1952, and his daughter Elizabeth became Queen on his death,
and being formally crowned the following year. In 1971, the British
coinage underwent a major change from the old £sd system of pounds,
shillings and pence, to be replaced by a decimal system. Whilst the
pound was retained, there were 100 "new pennies" to the pound.
A New Denomination
The 1972 crown was the first British coin to have a face value of 25
pence. Previous crowns had been Five Shillings face value. The absence
of an inscription denoting the face value now causes some confusion,
particularly because, as from 1990, it appears to have been decided that
future crowns would assume a Five Pounds face value.
We are frequently asked why the 1972 crown, and others do not carry a
mark of value. It may be more relevant to ask why it is necessary for
most modern coins to carry a statement of their value. In bygone times,
most people knew what coins were worth, they did not need to rely on an
inscription on the coin to inform them. This would be an interesting
subject for further study.
From the introduction of the first crown in 1544, crowns did not
carry a mark of value. Only briefly did crowns ever carry such a mark,
the occasions being as follows, very rare Charles I Scarborough siege
coinage, Commonwealth (1649 - 1660) crowns, and Charles II second issue
hammered gold crowns. The value mark on all these was a letter "V", the
Roman numeral for 5. Apart from these, the first time that crowns bore a
denomination was from 1927, when the word "CROWN" appeared on them.
On the three crowns issued between 1951 and 1960, the value "Five
Shillings" appeared, but this was again omitted from the Churchill
Commemorative crown of 1965. Britain had only just completed
decimalisation in 1971, it may have been sensible, with hindsight, to
have shown the new decimal equivalent - 25 New Pence - on this and
subsequent crown issues.
The omission may have been partly historic, for reasons given above,
or it may have been partly because crowns had not been part of the
regular British coinage since about 1914, and the main purpose of the
1972 issue was as a commemorative piece, which was never primarily
intended to circulate.
