£5 Crown Coins

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During the whole of the 20th century the large crown denomination was traditionally reserved for special use, e.g. coronations, jubilees etc. For actual everyday use the public has long preferred bank notes as a means to carry and pay for higher value items and for this reason the large and cumbersome Crown coins are rarely seen in use. They are technically (probably) legal tender and can be spent, but the recent debacle with the higher value £20, £50 and £100 coins has meant that banks sometimes refuse to accept any coins that they deem ‘commemorative’. The fact that they cannot be collected from circulation means that they are less collected than the 50p, £1 and £2 coins.

Upon decimalisation in 1971 the Crown coin, which had always been 5 Shillings, became it’s decimal equivalent, i.e. 25 pence. Crowns with 25p face value were issued in 1972, 1977, 1980 and 1981. See here for more details on those.

After a whole nine years of no new Crowns, it was decided that the 1990 Crown should be re-valued to an amount that better reflected its larger size and weight and thus the £5 Crown was born.

At the end of 2019 there have been 72 £5 Crowns issued (plus quite a few proof only, not yet listed).

Details of all £5 coins are shown below:

1990 (1 coin – Queen Mother’s 90th)
1993 (1 coin – 40th anniversary of Coronation)
1996 (1 coin – Queen’s 70th birthday)
1997 (1 coin – Queen’s 40th wedding anniversary)
1998 (1 coin – 50th Birthday of Prince Charles)
1999 (2 coins – Princess Diana commemorative and 1999 dated Millennium coin)
2000 (2 coins – 2000 dated Millennium coin and Queen Mother’s 100th)
2001 (1 coin – Centenary of end of Victorian ers)
2002 (2 coin – 50th anniversary of accession to throne, and Queen Mother death)
2003 (1 coin – 50th anniversary of coronation)
2004 (1 coin – Entente Cordiale)
2005 (2 coins – Nelson and battle of Trafalgar)
2006 (1 coin – Queen’s 80th birthday)
2007 (1 coin – Queen’s 50th wedding anniversary
2008 (2 coins – Elizabeth I and 60th Birthday of Prince Charles)
2009 (2 coins – Henry VIII and Countdown ‘3’)
2009-2010 – There were 18 ‘Celebrations of Britain’ Crowns issued, all as proofs only. Not yet listed.
2010 (2 coins – Restoration of Monarchy and Countdown ‘2’)
2011 (3 coins – William Royal Wedding, Countdown ‘1’ and Prince Philip’s 90th)
2012 (4 coins – Countdown ‘0’, London Olympics x2, 50th anniversary of accession)
2013 (3 coins – 50th anniversary of coronation, Prince George x2)
2014 (2 coins – Queen Anne and Prince George 1st birthday)
2015 (6 coins – Churchill, Waterloo, Birth of Princess Charlotte, Longest reign and 2x silver proof only coins)
2016 (1 coin – Queen’s 90th birthday)
2017 (9 coins – Canute, House of Windsor, Queen’s Sapphire, Philip service, Queen’s Beasts x2, Remembrance, Queen’s Wedding, Christmas)
2018 (11 coins – Prince George’s 5th birthday, Four generations, another two beasts, a special England beast, Sapphire Anniversary, the Royal wedding, Charles’ birthday, Harry and Meghan wedding, Remembrance poppy, Academy of Arts and Nutcracker Christmas coin.)
2019 – (9 coins – Plantagenet Falcon, Tower Raven, Birth of Victoria, Beaufort Yale, Tower Crown Jewels, Tower Yeoman, Tower Keys, a special England beast and Remembrance poppy).
2020 – (18 coins – Year of the Rat, Mortimer white lion, George III, three from the Music Legends series (Queen, Elton John and David Bowie), three for James Bond, Hanover White Horse, William Wordsworth, another four for the Tower of London, one for the British Red Cross, one to mark the end of WWII and a poppy themed coin for Remembrance.).
2021 – (lots expected! Details coming soon).

UK £5 Crown coin specifications:

Size: 38.61mm
Width: 2.89mm
Metal composition: Cupro-nickel (75% copper, 25% nickel)
Weight: 28.28g

Comments

  1. Jean Thorburn
    30th July 2017

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    I have a £5 coin I received in 1990 for the queen mothers birthday is it worth any thing

    • CYC-Admin
      30th July 2017

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      Yes, at least £5. Some collect them but they aren’t a popular denomination (I suspect because people can’t find them in change and are therefore not exposed to them).

  2. herts coin collection
    3rd September 2017

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    Your 1990 Queen mother birthday coin if in mint condition then worth £7.00
    If not Mint condition £3 – £5 you may get more on eBay depending on bidders?

  3. Kieran
    3rd October 2017

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    There are two Sapphire Jubilee coins; one designed by Michael Guilfoyle and the other Glyn Davies.

  4. Nik Yeomans
    16th October 2017

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    We have seen the 25p ‘Crown’ become the £5 ‘Crown’ and now it has become an almost worthless and tacky item issued whenever a Royal sticks their head outside, at £13 a pop from the dear old Royal Mint. A Christmas coin is the last straw. This fine coin has lost all of it’s appeal in my eyes and I shall now stick to the £2 coin, which at least has some interesting subject matter.

    • CYC-Admin
      16th October 2017

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      8 different £5 crowns this year including the 2 beasts coins and the Christmas one. I also think it’s too many (even one a year is too many) and it has an adverse effect – no matter how much they try to big each one up, each is nothing special if they make 8 different ones in a year!

  5. Tammy jones
    19th October 2017

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    Is the 1996 £5 coin worth £5 or is it worth 25p

  6. Pat
    29th April 2018

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    I have found in my late husband coin collection. A five pound crown commemorating 60 wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip.
    Her head is on one side TDC 2007 five pounds. The flip side there are ? 6 what looks like wine glasses with long stems. One old and one new photo of the two of them.
    Thanks for help

    • CYC-Admin
      3rd May 2018

      Leave a Reply

      The key identifying feature is TDC Pat. It stands for Tristan Da Cuhna and is a tiny island with a population of about 200 people, who don’t really need coins. Lots of coins are made in their name and all of them tend to be very gimmicky and often they masquerade as (or rather, enjoy being confused for) regular UK £5 coins.

  7. Linda Wells
    1st May 2018

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    I have £6.50 in £5 coins. Wahoo. 😀

  8. Tammie Faulkner
    7th May 2018

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    I have a Golden Britannia Penny fully layered with pure 24 carat gold is accented in red, white & blue, a St George & the Dragon gold plated £5 coin & 2 gold coloured 2012 half crowns, 1 states the jubilee monarch, the other states the 1953 coronation. Can anyone confirm how much each of these coins are now worth? All 4 coins are in mint condition & still in their cases.

    • CYC-Admin
      8th May 2018

      Leave a Reply

      They were never officially made like that. Basically a company has sourced those coins (which are all cheap and readily available) and have then plated them/coloured them, printed their own ‘certificates’ and had boxes made for them in order to sell them quite expensively, even though technically as coins they are ruined. I think people do buy them second hand as colourful gimmicky items, but generally not for huge amounts (and nowhere near what they tend to have been sold for new).

  9. Shannon
    31st May 2018

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    I have a 2004 entente cordiale 5 pound coin and a 1953 – 1993 40th aniversary 5 pound coin. How much are each of these worth and can i exchange them st the bank?

    • CYC-Admin
      31st May 2018

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      It depends on the bank and the mood of the cashier. You can potentially but it’s not always easy and often requires a discussion! Both should be worth a little more than face value if you can find the right buyer (and especially if they are in perfect condition).

  10. Ian
    25th June 2018

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    Hi, What about the 2018 Royal Academy for the Arts £5?
    Yes I know another £13 quid to the royal mint and that make 7 £5 coins this year and its only July!

    • CYC-Admin
      25th June 2018

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      I’ve decided not to include that one while only generally available as a silver proof coin. The base metal version is available from one private seller of coins (who seem to have either bought the lot or have done some kind of exclusive deal with the Royal Mint – either way, I disagree with that business practice). I suspect the Royal Mint will offer it soon. And yes, 7 £5 coins in the first six months of 2018 – I don’t think that’s going to improve the popularity of £5 coins!

  11. Clive
    1st November 2018

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    I’v noted ten five Pound coins for 2018 and 11 if you include 2019 queen’s beast coin falcon of the Plantagenet witch has already been released by the royal mint the royal academy of art five pound coin has only 12,000 mintage and they still can’t sell them and noticing the blue peter 2009 50p is not the rarest 50p at only 19,751 surely all the above are only tokens they haven’t come out in circulation so not uk coins.

    • CYC-Admin
      1st November 2018

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      Yes, some do take that view. The Royal Mint are the only commercial seller of coins that can legally put a face value on mainland UK coins, so they do technically do have a face value and can be spent (although that’s probably quite hard in practice for the £5 coins) and are therefore not tokens strictly speaking. A lot of people do only collect actual coins that you can find in circulation and the Royal Mint certainly make far too many different types these days. Regardless of what they are, someone needs to tell them that less is more!

  12. Mark R
    19th December 2018

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    There’s also another Christmas £5 coin so are we up to 12 now issued in 2018 including the Academy coin and the early 2019 release?

    Does it now seem likely that for whatever reason Royal Mint won’t be officially releasing the base metal Academy coin? Strange decision and it will make the unofficial version ultra rare!

    I agree that less is more, especially with this ‘crown’ coin which had a long tradition of marking very special events once every few years but now we’re at the rate of one per month!

    • CYC-Admin
      11th January 2019

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      I don’t know about ultra-rare. Even if they only make 100, there still needs to be 100 people to want one to make anything genuinely hard to find. Low mintage numbers have very little to do with anything, the only factor these days that makes coins expensive is demand for them and very often that demand is pretty superficial and the result of silly hype.

  13. Mark Rathbone
    22nd January 2019

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    Thanks, I agree and we’ve just had another example of that with all the ‘hype’ created by that limited edition 50p proof set that sold out in hours and is already on eBay for hundreds of pounds! Equally, the pace of production of the five pounds coins is already running for 2019 with the early release of FOUR coins to celebrate the Tower of London, so is that six coins already by mid January?

    • CYC-Admin
      24th January 2019

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      I think they’ll stagger the 4 Tower of London coin through the year and not sell them all at once. I expect it’ll be a total of 10+ different coins by the end of the year!

  14. trumaineo@gmail.com
    2nd June 2019

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    I have a silver £5 that says it’s from 2010 and it’s a “Jubilee Monarch” one. Any idea what this is worth or if there is a record of it, as I cannot locate it?

    • CYC-Admin
      2nd June 2019

      Leave a Reply

      Sounds like it may be one of those dubious issues for tiny British overseas islands (does it have ‘TDC’ on it?). Or it could also be some kind of privately produced medal that looks like a crown/£5 coin.

  15. Sohaile
    20th September 2019

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    Hi. I have a few different £5 coins dated after 1990. Since they all have a face value of £5 can they all be deposited into a normal bank account at face value? If not how do I sell them and will I get at least the money at face value back?

    • CYC-Admin
      22nd October 2019

      Leave a Reply

      It will be tricky getting face value for them at banks, since the Royal Mint balls-up with their conning £20/£50/£100 coins and the whole fuss they caused. On the positive side though, I’m sure you’ll be able to find homes for £5 coins for at least face value. For some there is enough demand to even achieve more than face value.

  16. Mary padgett
    21st January 2020

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    I have a five pound coin in memory of Diana princess
    Of Wales coin dated 1999 but the memory date is
    1961 to 1997 is this coin worth any more than £5

    • CYC-Admin
      27th January 2020

      Leave a Reply

      They’re all like that. It took them a while to make a commemorative coin for Diana. These days, they’d have one done the next day I expect, and would market it to their email subscribers in several different versions!

  17. Mike
    1st February 2020

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    Where can I buy £5 coins at face value? I used to get them from the post office but not any more. I run an amusement arcade and they look good on the coin pushers as prizes.

    • CYC-Admin
      3rd February 2020

      Leave a Reply

      You can’t do that anymore. The Mint is pretty much just in it for the profit these days, so they’d rather sell them in packs. Other companies claim to offer £5 coins for £5, but they are usually UK territory coins and/or you then end up on their mailing list and they will bombard you with advertising for very often quite shady deals. You should be able to get a lot of older £5 coins for very close to face value when you buy 2nd hand.

  18. Mark R
    11th December 2020

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    Hi – I think I’ve counted 18 in total for 2020 which is crazy, plus even one dated 2021 already! During the first 40 years of Elizabeth’s reign there were 8 issued in total and they were special coins that marked major events. This year… one with Elton John on it and three for James Bond! This is the first year I refused to buy them all. There must be very few collectors who think this is a good thing?

  19. Chris Hammersley
    22nd December 2020

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    On the CYC app the £5 coin sexton only seems to go to 2008?
    Is that because I have it set to circulation only? Are any of them in circulation?
    Have there really been none since 2008?

    • CYC-Admin
      22nd December 2020

      Leave a Reply

      There have been plenty since 2008 and shed loads in recent years. 2008 was the last year that you could get them for £5 from a Post Office, so although they were never normally spent day-to-day, we decided to flag them as circulated up to that date.

  20. James Moffat
    24th February 2021

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    The worst 5pound coin ever Mr men

  21. Alan Faulkner
    2nd April 2021

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    The 2018 BUNC £5, Queen Beasts, Bull of Clarence Coin.

    What is it with this coin, currently if you can find one they are in excess of £100, on a well known selling auction site, dearer then a 2 oz Silver Version. Production, run of 17 k, so must be a load hiding somewhere ?.

    Got the other 9, but this one, is proving to be like finding Hen’s Teeth.

    • CYC-Admin
      2nd April 2021

      Leave a Reply

      I don’t know Alan, people seem to be crazy about it all of a sudden (since the number made was made available) and willing to pay whatever it takes. The relative low number sold isn’t really that unusual or relevant as the £5 coins don’t tend to be massively popular when new. Coins with low numbers usually just mean that less people wanted them when they were new, so they made/sold less and then all of a sudden they want them a couple of years later! There must be a lot of people like you that decide they would like one now…. can I ask how come you didn’t get it when it was new? Perhaps your reason is the same that others may not have bought it when it was new. No doubt there is a lot of speculation involved – people buying them hoping to flip them for a quick profit ASAP etc etc, and that also drives prices up.

  22. Alan Faulkner
    2nd April 2021

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    RE: 2018 BUNC £5 BLACK BULL OF CLARENCE.

    I have only been collecting them the last few months, getting the other 9 was reasonable, fetching on average £20 a coin. But the above coin, not the same. There are have been examples on that well known auction website, fetching way over £100. Now the 2 oz Silver version, you can get for at a cheaper price. So Nichol being more then Silver.??.
    I would of thought the BUNC runs would of been similar for these coins, aimed at people who just like to collect. I can understand the 1oz, 2oz, 10oz, and Gold versions perhaps are aimed more at the investor, but BUNC coin ???
    It takes the fun out of collecting, because there are people that just like to collect a nice standard issue, not just Silver or Gold versions.
    I had written to the Royal Mint, but to no joy. So will now wait and see if I can find one, not at a silly price.
    Perhaps in time, they will fall back to a more sensible price. ??

    • CYC-Admin
      3rd April 2021

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      They might do, things very often do fall back (but not everything unfortunately).

  23. Angela
    5th November 2021

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    My dad as a £5 coin Trafalgar on the queen’s head it as got it irb under it also still in the original money bag sealed is this worth anything

    • CYC-Admin
      5th November 2021

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      A little more than face value, but £5 coins of that kind of age don’t tend to be wildly popular.

  24. Neil Bailey
    13th December 2021

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    I’ve come into 4 £5 coins. The first dated 1977 with Elizabeth on a horse one side and a bird, crown and flowers the other. Next a Churchill profile one dated 1965. Another dated Aug 4th 1980 with the queen mother portrait and lastly one with 5 flags ( the Union Jack, 1926, 1996, the royal standard and one with an E). Are they worth anything?

    • CYC-Admin
      13th December 2021

      Leave a Reply

      None of the pre 1990 crown sized coins have a £5 face value, your 1977, 1965 and 1980 coins are true crowns with a face value of 25p (historically crowns were 5 shillings). 1990 and later were re-valued to £5 so your 1996 coin in a £5 but it’s one that doesn’t tend to be particularly sought after.

  25. Colin warne
    2nd February 2022

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    Have a coin , one four emblems like a crown, on the other side it’s Elizabeth 11 , 80th birthday dated 2006

  26. Daniel Nowak
    25th May 2022

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    Hi
    I have a question about silver jubilee crown
    Last year I’ve been to car boot sale and I bought a a coin
    I was looking at it and I spotted something weird .
    It was a date 1877
    The I turned the coin to the other side and the reverse was upside down
    Is it possible that the coin is fake?
    Look forward to hearing from you
    Many thanks
    Regard
    Daniel

    • CYC-Admin
      25th May 2022

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      Yes, it’s a known fake type. No idea why they put the wrong date on it. They almost certainly come from China.

  27. Shirley Lind
    12th July 2022

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    Good afternoon,
    As a charity we have been given a number of £5 coins ranging from 1953 to 2008 plus a few Crown Coins.
    We are looking for advice regarding obtaining the best value for selling these and wonder if anyone can point us in the right direction as to values and where we would sell them? We are a bit in the dark re pre-decimal coins too! Any practical advice would be greatly received.
    Best Regards
    Shirley

    • CYC-Admin
      12th July 2022

      Leave a Reply

      Any that are pre 1990 have a face value of 25p. Most are a bit problematic to sell to be honest, due to low demand and also the fact that banks aren’t really interested in redeeming them at face value, so you can’t even rely on the value written on them. Some dates are a little more sought after but even coin dealers aren’t really all that into them, because they know that even getting £5 for them can be difficult. Perhaps advertise them all in bulk for £3 each (and 25p for the earlier ones). That would be a fair price and probably enticing enough for someone.

  28. Anna Saba
    13th March 2023

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    I have 2 £5 coins.
    1 × a 2003 Jubilee Coronation. With God Save The Queen on the reverse and a rather modern design of the Queen ‘s Head.
    Both sides are of an unusual design.
    The 2nd x £5 Coin is from the Millenium, showing the dates 1999 2000.
    It has Anno Domini on the reverse , shows the British Isles and has a Pointer From A of the Anno to between 1999 2000.
    Are these both Crowns ?
    Are they of any Value ?
    NB. Neither have been circulated.

    • CYC-Admin
      13th March 2023

      Leave a Reply

      Yes, they’re both crowns (£5 face value) but neither are particularly valuable I’m afraid.

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