User:Generalissima/Crown (New Zealand coin)

The crown was a denomination of the New Zealand pound intermitted issued as commemorative coins in 1935, 1949, and 1953. The first of these coins, the Waitangi crown, was issued in extremely small numbers and sold to collectors. The crown issues of 1949 and 1953 were released directly into circulation and could be initially obtained at face value. They were the physically largest coin of New Zealand, at 1.525 in in diameter. The first two coins in the series were struck in .500 fineness silver, while the last was struck in cupronickel.

Background
British pound sterling coinage, including crowns, began circulating in New Zealand during the early 1800s. Crown pieces rarely circulated, both within the United Kingdom and in New Zealand itself.

1935 (Waitangi crown)
Proposals for a commemorative crown issue began in late 1933, during the final stages of design and production for the initial series of pound coinage. Sutherland, writing for the

Proposals for regular issue
In 1936, numismatist Allan Sutherland proposed that a crown be issued as the base unit of a "cent-crown decimal system". The 1937 annual report of the New Zealand Numismatic Society suggested that "opportunity should be taken to call for designs for [...] the Crown piece which has not yet been given a standard design." In October of that year, the issue was raised by Sutherland to the government-sponsored Coinage Sub-Committee of the National Historical Committee, but rejected by Treasury Secretary George Charles Rodda, who stated that there was no plans to begin a regular issue. The failure of the Waitangi crown may have contributed to the decision not to pursue a general issue crown piece.