By Jeff Starck COIN WORLD

A crown might be something a monarch wears, or a specifically British coin denomination, but to world coin collectors a “crown” is much more.

Crown-sized coins are generally those silver coins measuring in a range from 33 to 50 millimeters in diameter and weighing about 20 to 30 grams in weight. The term “crown” is sometimes used to describe the copper-nickel versions of the previously silver coins. Crowns are popular with collectors of “modern” world coins, generally defined as coins produced from A.D. 1500 to the present.

Crown-sized coins, issued by numerous countries, are available in numerous denominations – pesos, dinars, francs, shillings, reales, marks, dollars and, yes, even crowns.

The first modern European crown-sized silver coin, the taler, was issued in Austria in the mid-1480s. In a relatively short period, the silver crown gained wide popularity and was adopted nearly everywhere in Europe.