Three coins inside one denomination
A half crown was two shillings and sixpence, an eighth of a pound, and the same size of coin from the recoinage of 1816 until the last one was struck for circulation in 1967. What one is worth now turns on the date before it turns on condition or reign, because the date settles whether the coin holds sterling silver, half silver, or no silver at all. A 1919 half crown holds 13.08 grams of fine silver. Its 1949 counterpart, the same size and nearly the same design, holds none, and in the condition most of them survive in it is worth pennies.
Two standards changed inside the series and neither shows in the design, which is why a drawer of half crowns has to be sorted by year before anything else happens to it.
The two changes, and the years they fall on
The Coinage Act 1920 rewrote the standard fineness in the Coinage Act 1870, substituting “one-half fine silver, one-half alloy; or millesimal fineness 500” for the sterling wording in that schedule as amended in 1891. The Coinage Act 1946 then took silver out of the circulating coinage altogether, and its schedule sets the half crown at a standard weight of 218.18181 grains, or 14.13795 grams, in an alloy of three-quarters copper and one-quarter nickel.
| Struck | Standard | Fine silver in one coin |
|---|---|---|
| 1816 to 1919 | Sterling, 925 | 13.08 g |
| 1920 to 1946 | Half silver, 500 | 7.07 g |
| 1947 to 1967 | Cupronickel, no silver | None |
The 1920 Act is dated 31 March 1920 and bites on coins made after it came into force, so 1920 is the one year in the series where the date alone does not fix the standard. Treat a 1920 coin as half silver for the arithmetic and have it tested if the difference matters to you.
Half crowns struck before 1816 are a separate field, priced by type, die and rarity rather than by metal, and the weights above were not theirs.
What the silver comes to
The gross weight has not moved since 1816, and the recoinage rate of 66 shillings to the troy pound makes a half crown exactly five elevenths of a troy ounce. Multiply 13.08 grams for a pre-1920 coin, or 7.07 grams for one of 1920 to 1946, by the price per gram of fine silver, and the answer is the floor under that coin. Weigh a quantity together and price it against the London benchmark rather than against a figure printed here. The scrap calculator covers sterling, and the silver price page gives every standard by the gram, coin silver at 500 among them, which is the row the 1920 to 1946 coins need. The benchmark is set by auction at noon each working day, so it holds until the next one.
A refiner pays under the benchmark and a dealer buying a bag pays 80 to 90 percent of it, as the old coins guide sets out alongside the same arithmetic for the crown, florin, shilling and sixpence. Nothing dated 1947 or later has a floor of any kind.
The 24 years with no half crown
The florin, introduced in 1849 at two shillings, sat close enough to the half crown in size and value to be mistaken for it, and the older coin then disappeared for a generation. The Royal Mint Museum’s account of the demise of the florin records that minting of half crowns for circulation ceased in 1850, that the mint’s remaining stock was exhausted by September 1853, and that Gladstone gave instructions in February 1874 for striking to resume. Whether the suspension was policy or drift the museum leaves open; either way it let the florin take root.
A Victorian half crown therefore falls into 1839 to 1850 or 1874 to 1901, and nothing ordinary sits between. A coin reading 1855 or 1865 is a specialist’s question rather than a price-list entry.
The same museum record closes the series at the other end: the Committee of Inquiry on Decimal Currency saw no place for both coins in 1963 and recommended keeping the florin, and the half crown was demonetised at the end of 1969. No half crown was struck for circulation after 1967, and the 1970 coins exist only in the farewell proof sets.
The dates worth checking
Scarcity in this series is a question of how many were made, and the recorded mintages separate a handful of years from tens of millions of ordinary coins. The figures below are the mintages as published in the Coin Yearbook, the standard British annual, rather than read off the Royal Mint’s own reports.
| Date | Recorded mintage | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1905 | 166,008 | The key date of the whole series, and the one worth an opinion in any grade |
| 1903 | 274,840 | Edward VII’s second year, scarce in collectable condition |
| 1904 | 709,652 | The third of the three low Edwardian years |
| 1930 | 809,051 | The scarcest George V date, against 26 million in 1923 |
| 1925 | 1,413,461 | Low for the 1920s and hard to find unworn |
Two dates are not price-list coins at all. No 1952 half crown reached circulation, which puts any coin offered under that date in front of a specialist before a cheque is written. The 1970 issue was struck as proof only, 750,000 of them, and sells as part of its set rather than singly.
Condition decides the rest. A common Edwardian or early George V date in extremely fine condition is a collector’s coin; the same date worn smooth is silver by weight. The grading guide sets out the British scale and the one action that destroys the premium, which is cleaning. The site’s price records hold no half crown result yet, so this page gives mintages and metal rather than hammer prices for the scarce dates.
Half crown, florin or crown
Three coins of similar heraldic design and a clear order of size run through the same century, and the Royal Mint spent decades trying to make two of them look different. The Coinage Act 1946 schedule settles the question by weight.
| Coin | Face value | Standard weight |
|---|---|---|
| Florin | Two shillings | 11.31 g |
| Half crown | Two shillings and sixpence | 14.14 g |
| Crown | Five shillings | 28.28 g |
An early Victorian florin announces itself: the value is spelled out on the reverse as ONE TENTH OF A POUND, which was the point of the coin. Edward VII’s florin then took a standing figure of Britannia while the half crown kept a heraldic shield, adopted by the mint’s own account to make the two coins as dissimilar as possible. A crown is unmistakable on the scales at twice the weight of a half crown, and Victorian and later crowns are collected by date rather than melted. The crown guide covers that denomination on its own, including why most crowns struck after 1947 are worth their 25p of legal tender and nothing more.
What to do with a jar of them
Sort by date into three piles: before 1920, 1920 to 1946, and 1947 onwards. Weigh the first two separately, because one holds nearly twice the silver of the other per coin. The scrap calculator prices the sterling pile at 925; the half-silver pile needs the coin silver row on the silver price page, because 500 is not one of the standards the calculator offers. The third pile has no metal value and no face value either, the coin having been demonetised at the end of 1969, so it is worth what a collector pays for an unworn example and nothing at all worn.
Anything dated before 1839 comes out of the sorting altogether. George III, George IV and William IV half crowns are priced by type, die and condition rather than by weight, and a trip to the scales is how a coin worth many times its metal leaves as bullion.
Then read the dates in the first two piles against the table above and set aside 1903, 1904, 1905, 1925 and 1930, along with anything that still carries its original surface. Photograph those separately, both sides, before they go anywhere. A bag of worn half crowns is a weight; five coins pulled out of it by date are a reason to ask the coins section of this site, or a saleroom, what they are looking at.
