Talk:Half crown (British coin)

Size, weight and compostition

Anyone know what size it is, what it's made of and how much it weighs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.228.151 (talk • contribs) 07:17, 7 June 2007

Shouldn't the new money half crown info be here?

A ceromonial half crown worth 25p existed before the £5 coin was introduced and said coin was refered to as a half crown because it had the same value as a pre decimal half crown.(86.31.182.119 (talk) 22:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC))

No, the 25p coin was equivalent to, and referred to as, a crown, not a half-crown. -- Arwel Parry _(talk) 00:10, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

re "half-dollar" reference in 1800's US

Anecdotally, I can report that the half-crown was referred to as "'alf a dollar" [sic] in Britain, particularly in London-area slang, up until its demise. I'm not sure how one would find documentary confirmation of this: perhaps from contemporary newspaper articles reporting colloquial speech, contemporary novels, or from corresponding filmed material? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 04:50, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Hyphenation

I notice that the article title is unhyphenated ("Half crown"), but throughout the lead section it's hyphenated ("half-crown"). My feeling is that it should be hyphenated (which seems to be the spelling given in most dictionaries), so I changed the rest of article to the hyphenated style. For consistency, then, the article should be titled "Half-crown", but because usage does not seem to be entirely consistent (even the Royal Mint website has both versions), I thought it should probably be discussed first. Any views? Matt 18:45, 15 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.242.18 (talk)

I changed my mind about this. Trawling round the web a bit more, I'm of the opinion that there's no right or wrong answer here. Some people hyphenate it and others don't. However, the titles of similar articles such as Half dollar, Half laurel, Half guinea etc. are unhyphenated, and the unhyphenated form arguably looks less fussy. So I've dehyphenated. If you disagree then please feel entirely free to put the hyphens back. Matt 12:41, 18 November 2008 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.169.94 (talk)

Name

I was born in 1952 and grew up using this coin and it was always referred to as "Half a Crown" as in "It cost me Half a Crown to get into the cinema" 94.197.158.199 (talk) 21:39, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Wrong Valuation

It states, correctly that Half a Crown was 2 shillings and sixpence but the conversion is wrong as that is actually 12.5 pence and not 30p as indicated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.224.17 (talk) 12:09, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

You are mixing up your old and new currencies. With 12 (old) pence to the shilling, the valuation of 2/6 = 30d is correct. The decimal equivalent is, as you say, 12½p. 62.156.255.22 (talk) 12:20, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Decimal equivalent

Perhaps worth mentioning that despite being demonetised, the coin was still in circulation post-decimalisation as it had an exact equivalent, 12½p, in the new currency (which at that time included a ½p).Captain Pedant (talk) 09:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure about that? Yes, the old coin did have an exact equivalent value in the new currency, but it was withdrawn over a year before decimalisation. Demonetised means it is no longer "money" and could not, for example, be paid into a bank. I doubt many shops would accept their customers continuing to pay with what was by then nothing more than pretty-but-useless discs of metal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.156.255.22 (talk) 12:40, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Mintages

How come the mintages give a figure of 750,000 for 1970 when elsewhere it is stated that the coin had been discontinued in 1967 and demonetized 1.1.1970? If it's true, it should at least merit some explanation. Masonmilan (talk) 16:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I have 2 other questions about the number of coins minted : - Before the queen Victoria (the oldest in this section), did'nt they register or count the minted coins or do we lack these registers ? - Is the number of proof mintages included in the total mintages or not ? Furthermore, for better reading, shall we not organise these datas into a chart ? If anyone aproves the idea, I could do it myself with the already existing datas. Kejimad (talk) 08:53, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Let's just remove the value tag

It is obvious no common ground or satisfactory compromise can possibly be reached without just taking "value" out and not listing it in the infobox at all. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 05:36, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Discussion centralised at talk:Pound sterling#"Value =" in infoboxes for historic sterling coinage --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:15, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

"Two and six"

Sometime ago, I came across the phrase "two and six" in a 1960s novel and found out that it meant two shillings and sixpence, a half-crown. So I have boldly added it to the article, no challenge if anyone wants to revert. But out of curiosity, I had a look at ngram viewer. It turns out that this nickname began to dominate over the official title from about 1870 and never went back. John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:00, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

It's not so much a nickname for the coin as a way of expressing that amount of money. Not something we do much nowadays in Britain - but similar to the distinction between "a nickel" and "five cents" in the US. Just, a bit less transparent.

British money terms before decimalisation were at times not obvious to outsiders. My understanding is that in most cases, for amounts larger than a shilling, they'd drop the word "shillings" and merge the word pence into the number. So, six and eightpence was a third of a pound. Sixteen and eightpence was 200 pence. Often - particularly where it was sixpence (so half a shilling) or if there were also pounds involved - the pence would disappear as well. Hence two and six - or for that matter, three and four, eight and two, fifteen and ten, whatever, with the first number meaning shillings and the second meaning pence. Kahastok talk 16:33, 22 July 2022 (UTC)