½ Crown - Elizabeth II 1st portrait with 'BRITT:OMN' (1953)

About the 1953 Half Crown - Elizabeth II – with 'BRITT:OMN'

The 1953 Half Crown - Elizabeth II – with 'BRITT:OMN' is a circulating ½ crown coin, struck in copper-nickel (75% Cu, 25% Ni). It weighs 14.14g and measures 32.3mm across. Reverse design: Crowned quartered shield of arms flanked by E and R, legend above, denomination and date below.

4,333,214 were struck. It is no longer legal tender (withdrawn 1969), so its value is to collectors only.

Common questions

History and design

This is the half crown of Elizabeth II's first coinage year, and the only date of her half crowns to include BRITT OMN in the Queen's title. From 1954 the words were removed from the whole coinage, so a 1953 half crown stands alone. The coin is cupro-nickel, the alloy used for the half crown since 1947, worth two shillings and sixpence, or one eighth of a pound.

It is also the lowest-mintage half crown of the reign. Coin Hunter and Wikipedia both give 4,333,214 currency coins dated 1953, with a further 40,000 proofs for the coronation year sets. The next lowest date, 1964, has 5,973,600, and eleven of the fourteen later dates exceeded ten million.

The obverse carries Mary Gillick's wreathed portrait of the young Queen facing right. The Royal Mint Museum's own example reads + ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA BRITT: OMN: REGINA. Gillick, a 71-year-old sculptor who had never designed a coin, won the portrait competition judged by the Royal Mint Advisory Committee under the Duke of Edinburgh, as the Royal Mint Museum recounts.

The reverse shows the crowned shield of the Royal Arms between the letters E and R, with FID DEF above and HALF CROWN and the date below. Wikipedia credits it to Edgar Fuller and Cecil Thomas, and their initials appear at the lower edges of the shield, EF on the left and CT on the right. The Royal Mint's 1953 set listing names Cecil Thomas alone. The edge is milled.

Collecting notes

To identify the type, read the obverse legend: BRITT OMN means 1953, and its absence means the 1954 to 1967 half crown. With the lowest mintage of the reign, the 1953 date is the one most often missing from a run, although more than four million were made.

Proofs were issued in the 1953 coronation year sets. A proof should show mirrored fields and crisp rims, unlike the satin surface of a currency coin.

The half crown did not survive to Decimal Day. The Royal Mint Museum records that it ceased to be legal tender in January 1970, and Tony Clayton gives 1 January 1970, more than a year before the change to decimal currency. A 1953 half crown cannot be spent today.