five pounds is a crown in british currency.
five pounds is a crown in british currency.
how much is a crown in british currency?
five pounds
always a heavy silver coin weighing around one  ounce, during the 19th and 20th centuries the crown declined from being a real means of exchange to being a coin rarely spent and minted for commemorative purposes only. in that format it has continued to be minted, even following decimalisation of the british currency in 1971. however, as the result of inflation the value of the coin was revised upwards in 1990 to five pounds.









































section::::history.
crown (british coin)
in 1951 a new decimal currency ($1 british west indies = 100 cents) was introduced while stamps with british currency (1d. = 2c.) were still in use. this situation generated conversion problems since the us dollar was actually used for payments. virgin islanders regarded the british currency as “problematic”, and had a strong dislike for the “beewee” dollar. given these circumstances postal clerks had to convert every transaction from pound sterling to bwi$, and finally to us$ [bwi$1.20 was the equivalent of 5 shillings (60 pence) or 70usc. - which also translated 2 bwi cents into 1 penny]. the post office had to perforce divide by 12 and multiply by 7 for each transaction. to compound the problem, many of the postal rates did not precisely convert to us cents. commercial covers (and even philatelically inspired covers) with the postal rate paid by a combination of stamps in the old uk currency and the new beewee cents are rather scarce. the “beewee” headache came to an end on 10 december 1962, when the queen elizabeth ii definitive series was re-issued with overprints giving new denominations in us currency. three years earlier, in 1959, the us dollar had become the legal tender in the virgin islands, but by that time stamps in british currency had long been obsolete. since 1917, when the usa purchased the former danish west indies (st. thomas, st. john and st croix - known as the united states virgin islands), the us dollar enjoyed great popularity in the b.v.i. and in due course became the de facto currency. fifty years later, in 1967, the local legislature passed a bill making the us dollar the only legal tender.
postage stamps and postal history of the british virgin islands