The Isle of Man has its own circulating coinage, which is used in parallel with the British Pound Sterling; it also issues an extensive range of Non-Circulating Legal Tender (NCLT) coins for collectors, as well as bullion coins in a variety of formats and designs.
The coin format most popular with collectors is the Crown, which has the same specifications as the British (decimal) Crown - also issued as a collector coin, and historically is derived from the British pre-decimal Crown, which was a circulating denomination.
After decimalisation, a Crown coin was nominally denominated as 25 pence, an old Crown being equal to five shillings, and a shilling re-denominated as five pence. The UK Crown and its derivatives - such as the Manx Crown - was later re-denominated as £5 in 1990. The Manx Crown displays the denomination as "Crown" though and not as £5 (which its UK counterpart almost never does), and is - also unlike the UK Crown - subdivided into fractional denominations, such as half-crown, one-tenth Crown etc.
From 1972 onwards, production of the circulating and commemorative coinage was transferred from the Royal Mint to Pobjoy Mint. Since 2017, coins of the Isle of Man are minted by the Tower Mint. |